US Taxpayers Paid $150 Billion In 1 Year For Migrants: Report
In 2023, roughly $150 billion in US taxpayer money was doled out for government services and support to help the 20 million illegals in the country, according to a study from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).
US taxpayers paid $150 BILLION to care for illegal aliens… JUST LAST YEAR.
Most of the money was borne by state and local governments, not the feds, the NY Post reports.
In Massachusetts, Republican leaders say there’s a $1 billion hole in state coffers — and they’re accusing the Democrat-controlled government of quietly siphoning off tax dollars to deal with the migrant crisis.
On Tuesday, the state’s Republican Party filed a Freedom of Information Act request demanding Gov. Maura Healey release Massachusetts’ full migrant budget, and alleging that the true cost has been hidden from the public. -NY Post
“The Healey-Driscoll Administration has shrouded nearly $1 billion spent in secrecy, leaving Massachusetts residents in the dark,” the party’s Amy Carnevale told Fox News. “They have withheld critical information on 600 incidents involving police, fire and EMT. Blocking journalists at every turn, the administration has obstructed the flow of information to the public.”
According to FAIR, in 2023, Massachusetts taxpayers paid closer to $3 billion in state services for illegals.
In New York, the comptroller estimated that the migrant crisis would cost roughly $4.3 billion through 2025, while NYC taxpayers will be on the hook for $3 billion this year.
According to the Post, while most states’ accounts of migrant expenses look mostly at emergency housing and aid, FAIR looked at the ‘full breadth’ of state services – including education, medical expenses, law enforcement, legal costs, and welfare.
They also included the costs of US-born children of illegal immigrants.
“As long as we keep allowing millions of people to come into the country illegally every year, it’s obviously going to continue to increase the costs,” spokesperson Ira Mehlman told The Post. “This seems to be just sort of basic, common sense. If you were going to be bringing in lots and lots of people, many of them working off the books for very low wages, that there are going to be enormous social costs incurred,” he added.
Fed’s Favorite Inflation Indicator Unexpectedly Misses As Savings Rate Plunges To Near Record Low
The broadly weak trend of US macro data was jolted yesterday by the hotter than expected GDP print (hilariously driven by a surge in personal consumption at the same time as Dollar General announced the time of death of the US consumer), which prompted a hawkish shift in rate-cut expectations. However, this morning, the doves get another chance for some ‘bad news’ (disinflation) to support their ‘we must cut in September” narrative, unveiled by Powell himself last week during Jackson Hole, when the Fed’s favorite inflation indicator – Core PCE – came in line with expectations, and even missed estimates on a core YoY basis. Starting with headline:
PCE 0.2% MoM (unrounded 0.155%), in line with estimates of 0.2% and up from the 0.1% (0.0788%) last month
PCE 2.5% YoY, in line with estimates of 2.5%, and unchnaged from last month’s 2.5% YoY increase.
And here is core:
Core PCE 0.2% MoM (unrounded 0.1611%), in line with estimates of 0.2%, and unchanged from last month’s 0.2% (0.1818%) MoM increase
Core PCE 2.6% YoY, missing estimates of a 2.7% increase and unchanged from last month.
Here is the MoM headline change…
…and the annual:
Under the hood, durable goods deflation continues to drag Core PCE lower while Services costs continue to rise…
Even more notably, the so-called SuperCore PCE rose 0.2% MoM, the highest in 3 months, and which pushed YoY supecore to 3.25%, which remains awkwardly stagnant at elevated levels…
This was the 51st straight monthly rise in SuperCore prices with virtually all costs except transportation rising:
Turning to the household income statemet, on A MoM basis, income growth was stronger than expected (+0.3% vs +0.2% exp), while spending came in line as expected at +0.5% as expected.
The problem, however, is that spending growth continues to tick far above income growth, and on a YoY basis, spending continues to outpace incomes.
The absolute delta between the two series is shown in the next chart
The result is another month of declining savings: in July, the US savings rate as a percentage of disposable personal income dropped below 3.0% for the first time since covid – 2.9% to be precise – from 3.1%. This was the lowest print since June ’22 and the second lowest of the post-QE era.
All of which takes place against a background of the eight straight month of rising government handouts (well it is an election year after all)which means the savings rate would have puked even more without it!
In other words, the consumer is now wiped out and yet inflation refuses to drop materially. So yes, the Fed will cut and then we can finally unleash the second coming of the Arthur Burns hyperinflation Fed.
As you know, artificial intelligence (AI) is all the rage these days. From a market perspective, it’s certainly taken on bubble dynamics.
And I believe leading AI chipmaker Nvidia is about to get hammered, which could trigger a much broader market crash beginning tomorrow afternoon, shortly after 4 p.m.
But from a broader AI perspective, the news is full of stories about how machines with vast computing power and blinding processing speeds, given access to billions of books and documents and the ability to teach themselves, are poised to take over the world.
Is it true? I’ve been studying AI and its potential for years, so I have a deeper understanding of AI than the average talking head.
I’ve actually spent time visiting with the world’s third-fastest non-government supercomputer (the HiPerGator AI computer at the University of Florida) as part of a project to apply generalized superintelligence and AI to national security tasks.
So how advanced is AI getting? How close is it to approaching a rough parity with human intelligence? And what dangers does it pose to humanity?
We Can Just Pull the Plug — for Now at Least
Experimenters now envision machines taking on a life of their own and attacking humans and civilization. But it’s important to remember that if the machine goes berserk, you can just pull the plug.
Apologists for AI capacity claim that pulling the plug won’t work because the AI will anticipate that strategy and “export” itself to another machine in a catch-me-if-you-can scenario where disabling one location won’t stop the code and algorithms from popping up elsewhere and continuing to attack.
Maybe. But there are all kinds of logistical problems with this, including the availability of enough machines with the processing power needed, the fact that alternate machines are likely to be surrounded by firewalls and digital moats and a host of configuration and interoperability issues.
So for now, you can just pull the plug. In fact, there are a number of safeguards being proposed to limit the potential damage of AI while still harnessing its enormous benefits.
This isn’t a technical article, but these safeguards include transparency (so that third parties can identify flaws), oversight, a weakened form of adversarial training (so the machine can solve problems without plotting against us in its spare time), approval-based modification (the machine has to “ask permission” before activating autonomous machine learning), recursive reward modeling (the machine only moves in certain directions where it gets a “pat on the head” from humans) and other similar tools.
Of course, none of these safeguards works if the power behind AI is malignant and actually wants to destroy mankind. This would be like putting atomic weapons in the hands of a desperate Adolf Hitler. We know what would have happened next.
James Bond With AI
The solution in that case would be more political, forensic and defense oriented. Intelligence gathering would play a huge role. Of course, that evolves quickly into a machine-versus-machine intelligence war of collection and deception.
Imagine James Bond with a hyper-computer instead of a Walther PPK. AI’s more immediate threat is less serious, but nonetheless disturbing, especially for investors.
Investors need to be careful about relying on GPT systems for financial advice, despite their enormous processing power. The output is never better than the inputs and the market inputs are littered with bad models, false assumptions, poor forecasting records and biases.
Garbage in, garbage out.
AI is already being programmed with woke ideology, for example. You probably recall Google’s ridiculous Gemini AI-backed image generator that depicted Black Vikings, female popes and other absurd images. You can imagine the dystopian future that a woke superintelligence could create.
A Woke 1984
You’re probably familiar with George Orwell’s classic dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four; (it’s often published as 1984). It was written in 1948; the title comes from reversing the last two digits in 1948.
Orwell created an original vocabulary for his book, much of which is in common, if sardonic, usage today. Terms such as Thought Police, Big Brother, doublethink, Newspeak and memory hole all come from Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Orwell intended it as a warning about how certain countries might evolve in the aftermath of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War. He was certainly concerned about Stalinism, but his warnings applied to Western democracies also.
When the calendar year 1984 came and went, many breathed a sigh of relief that Orwell’s prophecy had not come true. But that sigh of relief was premature. Orwell’s nightmare society is here today in the form of Communist China.
1984 Comes to China
China has most of the apparatus of the totalitarian societies described in Orwell’s book. China is working hard on AI while using facial recognition software and ubiquitous digital surveillance to keep track of its citizens. The internet is censored and monitored. Real-life thought police will arrest you for expressing opinions opposed to the government or its policies.
While China’s worst excesses are not going to happen in the U.S. or what passes for the West these days, the less extreme aspects of China’s surveillance state could.
And while you might not be arrested for expressing unpopular opinions or challenging prevailing dogmas (at least not yet), you could face other sanctions. You could even lose your job and find it nearly impossible to find another. Think cancel culture.
But it’s not just China. Messaging app Telegram founder Pavel Durov was just arrested at an airport in France. It’s very possible the U.S. government had a role in the arrest, along with the EU.
The authorities claim Telegram was promoting child pornography and other heinous acts. But in reality, Durov was arrested because he was not accommodating to Western government requests that he censor certain information and viewpoints. Also, because he wouldn’t provide authorities with information about the producers of that content (Telegram offers producers encryption options).
That’s the real reason Durov was arrested. Is Elon Musk next?
“Show Me the Man and I’ll Show You the Crime”
Here in the U.S., many conservative social media participants have had their accounts closed or suspended, not for threats or vulgarity or promoting child pornography, but for criticism of “progressive” views (albeit criticism with some sharp edges).
Meanwhile, those with progressive views can say almost anything on social media, including the implicit endorsement of violence. But nothing happens.
The problem is the trend is moving very quickly in this direction and it’s difficult to stop. And sophisticated surveillance technology to monitor citizens is already in place…
For example, cameras with the latest surveillance technology can spot and match millions of faces in real-time with an accuracy rate of over 99%. They’re touted as anti-terrorism and anti-crime tools, which they certainly are.
But as Stalin’s ruthless secret police chief Lavrentiy Beria said, “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.” It’s easy to see that power being abused to target everyday citizens.
(By the way, Beria would ultimately prove his own point, as he was later arrested and executed for treason.)
Circling back to AI, the problem is once the bad actors start populating the literature with misleading information and developer biases infiltrate the code, it’s clear that AI can be an instrument of tyranny.
In all, AI is definitely something to keep an eye on, and we should be asking important questions. But we shouldn’t worry about it taking over the world anytime soon.
We should instead worry about becoming like Communist China.
During a visit to Poland, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba participated in the Campus Poland of the Future event in Olsztyn, hosted by Warsaw’s liberal mayor, Rafał Trzaskowski. When asked by an audience member about when Poland would finally be allowed to exhume the victims of the Volhynia Massacre, Kuleba deflected the question by referring to the “Wisła” operation of 1947, where around 140,000 Ukrainians and Lemkos were deported from southeastern Poland amidst conflicts with Ukrainian nationalists.
Kuleba stated that the questioner should be aware of what the “Wisła” operation entailed and that those Ukrainians were forcibly expelled from Ukrainian territories to settle in places like Olsztyn.
Kuleba responded, “Do you realize what Operation ‘Wisła’ was? Those Ukrainians were forcibly expelled from their territories to live in places like Olsztyn,” before continuing: “But I’m not talking about that. If we start digging into history, the conversation would be very different, and we could go very deep into the wrongs done by Poles to Ukrainians and vice versa.”
These remarks have been met with strong disapproval in Poland. Cezary Kaźmierczak, president of the Union of Entrepreneurs and Employers, described Kuleba’s performance as “very insolent” and criticized the lack of reciprocity in the relationship.
Obejrzałem bardzo bezczelny występ Kuleby na Campus Polska. Cóż, trudno – trzeba robić swoje: bijcie się z ruskimi, żebyśmy my nie musieli tego robić i będziemy w tym pomagać co sił + biznes. Na inne rzeczy to już trzeba sobie zasłużyć i powinna obowiązywać reguła wzajemności.
Marcin Palade, a sociologist, expressed his dismay, stating that if Poland were a serious country with serious politicians, Kuleba would never be allowed to enter Poland again.
.@DmytroKuleba, szef 🇺🇦 MSZ na pytanie kiedy 🇺🇦 zezwoli na ekshumację ofiar rzezi wołyńskiej: “Zostawmy historię historykom, a przyszłość budujmy razem”. Gdybyśmy mieli poważne państwo, rządzone przez poważnych polityków, to ten bezczelny typ nigdy więcej nie wjechałby do Polski.
Jakub Banaszek, the president of Chelm, expressed his understanding that there would be no true reconciliation between Poles and Ukrainians. Łukasz Warzecha, a commentator for Do Rzeczy weekly criticized the Ukrainian approach to diplomacy, suggesting that some Polish politicians encourage such behavior.
The Volhynia Massacre, which started on July 11, 1943, involved attacks by Ukrainian nationalists on Polish inhabitants in 150 settlements in Volhynia. Between 1943 and 1945, approximately 100,000 Poles were killed by units of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and local Ukrainian populations in Volhynia, Podolia, and Eastern Galicia.
This crime is one of the most dramatic episodes of World War II and one of the most traumatic for Poles. Unlike the murders committed by German and Soviet occupiers, the Volhynia Massacre was often perpetrated by the victims’ neighbors, who had lived alongside Poles for generations. The massacre was not a spontaneous outburst of hatred but the result of the long-term influence of Ukrainian nationalist ideology, which aimed to create an independent, ethnically homogeneous Ukraine by exterminating and expelling Poles and other nationalities. This plan was attempted as early as September 1939, with the first murders of Poles and attacks on Polish estates occurring at that time.
The massacre remains a sensitive and highly emotional topic in Polish-Ukrainian relations, and Kuleba’s remarks have further strained these ties.
How it’s going: Just days after Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vocal critic of ultra-processed foods, endorsed former President Donald Trump to promote the “Make America Healthy Again” agenda, Time Magazine—a publication not to be taken seriously—published this…
Time published the initial headline, “What if Ultra-Processed Foods Aren’t as Bad as You Think?”
James Lindsay, a mathematician turned culture critic and author of the website New Discourses, pointed out on X, “I am once again reminding you that Time Magazine is owned by Marc Benioff, who is closely tied to the World Economic Forum and its agendas.”
I am once again reminding you that Time Magazine is owned by Marc Benioff, who is closely tied to the World Economic Forum and its agendas. https://t.co/YQfQrfy3T7
— James Lindsay, anti-Communist (@ConceptualJames) August 28, 2024
What could those WEF agendas be? Well, for one, the elites at WEF have pushed to reset the food supply chain for ‘sustainable’ reasons and implement insect diets worldwide. Also, these elites have a fascination for banning cow farts and eventually force the world to eat printed meat from a lab. Furthermore, governments across the West have waged war against small farms…
RFK Jr.’s push to “Make America Healthy Again” by breaking the grip of the processed food industry’s control of the nation’s food supply chain must have angered big food. That’s because shortly after, the response was Time gaslighting readers into believing ultra-processed foods are safe.
RFK Jr: “We’re being mass poisoned by processed foods, by pesticides, by chemicals, by pharmaceutical drugs”
“There’s now a bill before Congress that would force … Medicare to pay for Ozempic for every American who’s obese.
A weird thing happened. Wilson found that she had more energy and less anxiety. She didn’t need as much coffee to get through the day and felt more motivated. She felt better eating an ultra-processed diet than she had before, a change she attributes to taking in more calories by eating full meals, instead of haphazard combinations of whole-food ingredients.
Nothing to see here.
Not so safe…
This is true. Processed food is killing you.
One of the things I teach my clients is how to eat healthy. And I’m not talking about salad and rice all the time.
You can eat the foods you enjoy, you just have to be smart about it! https://t.co/HGwMjmT43N
A study revealed the shocking truth about processed food. Participants who ate a homemade meal experienced complete digestion within four hours, while those who consumed processed noodles still had visible teeth marks on the food after four hours. This suggests that processed… pic.twitter.com/RWJDec2G9C
The manipulation of the people seems to be nonstop by far-left MSM and their corporate partners. This time, folks have had enough, and the propaganda has failed.
China has yet to see its carbon dioxide emissions peak as it is a developing nation and has a massive population.
The message comes from the country’s National Energy Administration in response to speculation that China had achieved peak emissions before its own deadline.
“We should not forget that China is still a developing country, pursuing modernization for a huge population,” the head of law and institutional reform at the NEA, Song Wen, told media. “Great efforts are still needed to achieve the goals of peak carbon and carbon neutrality,” Song also said, as quoted by Bloomberg.
China has been at the forefront of the energy transition, accounting for most of the world’s total spending on things such as wind, solar, and EVs, and turning into the biggest producer of all three. However, this has not changed its status as one of the biggest emitters of carbon dioxide either.
Beijing is working to change this, however. Earlier this month media reported that the country planned to build 11 new nuclear reactors to boost the share of the zero-emission electricity source in its energy mix.
China is building more nuclear power plants than any other country in the world—just like its coal power plants—and based on those record approvals, it plans to build even more, becoming the world’s biggest nuclear generator by 2030, according to BloombergNEF.
There are 26 nuclear reactors under construction in the country, set to add over 30 GW in generation capacity to the country’s total when completed.
At the same time, Chinese authorities reduced significantly the number of approvals for new coal capacity. The total approved during the first half of the year was as much as 80% lower than the new coal capacity approved during the same period in 2023.
The question here, however, is whether the approvals are down because after last year’s push the country will have all the coal capacity it needs or because of efforts to reduce the dominance of coal in the energy mix.
US To Help Halt Chinese Drug Trafficking In Pacific Nations
The United States has agreed to help combat illicit drug trafficking in the Pacific Islands – a key node for drug trade between China and the United States.
According to a Thursday announcement by United States, Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell – speaking in Vanuatu at the formal launch of the U.S. embassy in Port Vila, which opened last month, said that criminals have begun to use the Pacific Islands as transit points.
“We are concerned some of the networks that have grown in China and South East Asia are beginning to use the Pacific for transshipment both to Latin America and the United States,” he said. “Many of our partners in the Pacific want to work with us to try to get a handle on that.”
The announcement comes amid an opioid crisis that has caused tens of thousands of overdose deaths annually, with the US criticizing Chinese firms for their role in the global fentanyl supply chain. Meanwhile, island nations such as Fiji and Tonga have seen a rise in meth seizures this year.
As the Epoch Timesnotes further, the deputy secretary said an announcement will be made next week on law enforcement regarding drugs in the Pacific.
He also said the United States could help with efforts in areas such as drug interdiction, treatment, and prevention.
Campbell visited Vanuatu a day after his meeting with leaders at the Pacific Islands Forum in Tonga.
Campbell said after meeting with Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele, who was elected in May, that the Solomon Islands, which struck a security pact with China under its previous leader, wants to re-engage with the United States.
Campbell also met China’s Pacific envoy Qian Bo in Tonga on Wednesday and said they discussed finding areas of cooperation in the Pacific, such as a climate change project, which he said regional leaders had welcomed.
He said the United States was working to offer financing for small businesses to revive tourism, hospital infrastructure, and telecoms links in Vanuatu and ensure Pacific Island countries a choice of partners.
China is Vanuatu’s largest external creditor after a decade of infrastructure construction by its companies.
On Wednesday, the Pacific Island Forum backed an Australian-funded $271-million plan to improve police training in the region and create a mobile policing unit.
Australia previously said it was concerned about China’s growing police presence in the region, and boosting the capability of Pacific police will reduce the need for Chinese police.
Illicit Drug Trafficking
Campbell’s announcement came as U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan raised similar issues, including drug trafficking to the United States, over 14 hours of meetings with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing.
“More specifically, we’re going to look for further progress on counternarcotics and reducing the flow of illicit synthetic drugs into the United States,” Sullivan told reporters on Thursday.
China has been one of the primary sources of fentanyl and fentanyl-related drugs—the leading cause of overdose deaths in the United States.
In May 2019, Beijing added fentanyl-related substances to its list of control substances, a move applauded by former President Donald Trump, who had repeatedly called on Xi to stem the flow of the drugs. However, Trump said three months later that the Chinese leader had failed to keep his promise.
Beijing also halted talks with Washington on several issues, including counternarcotics, in August 2022 after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan.
While talks resumed in January this year, the halt raised concerns that the Chinese regime will always be willing to use the issue as leverage when tensions increase in the Taiwan Strait.
In April this year, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) published a report saying evidence showed that the regime was directly subsidizing the manufacturing and export of illicit fentanyl materials and other synthetic narcotics, many of which have no known legal use worldwide, through tax rebates.
The report also said the regime gave monetary grants and awards to companies openly trafficking illicit fentanyl materials and other synthetic narcotics, that it holds ownership interest in several Chinese companies tied to drug trafficking, and it prevented U.S. law enforcement from investigating manufacturers by tipping them off in advance.
Public health responses are most effective when they are grounded in reality. This is particularly important if the response is intended to address an ‘emergency,’ and involves the transfer of large amounts of public money. When we reallocate resources, there is a cost, as the funds are taken from some other program. If the response involves buying lots of products from a manufacturer, there will also be a gain for the company and its investors.
So, clearly, there are three obvious requirements here to ensure good practice:
1. Accurate information is required, in context.
2. Those gaining financially can have no role at all in decision-making.
3. The organization tasked with coordinating any response would have to act with transparency, publicly weighing costs and benefits.
The World Health Organization (WHO), tasked by countries to help coordinate international public health, has just proclaimed Mpox (monkeypox) an international emergency. They considered an outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and nearby Central African countries to be a global threat, requiring an urgent global response. In declaring its emergency, WHO stated there were 537 deaths among 15,600 suspected cases this year. In its 19th August Emergency Meeting on Mpox, WHO clarified its figures:
…during the first six months of 2024, the 1854 confirmed cases of Mpox reported by States Parties in the WHO African Region account for 36% (1854/5199) of the cases observed worldwide.
The WHO reiterated that there had been 15,000 “clinically compatible” cases, and about 500 suspected deaths. The implications of these 500 unconfirmed deaths, equaling just 1.5% of the malaria deaths in DRC over the same period, are discussed in a previous article.
Journals such as the Lancet have dutifully towed the WHO’s ‘emergency’ line, though intriguingly noting that the mortality could be far lower if “adequate care” had been provided.Africa CDC agrees, with more than 17,000 cases (2,863 confirmed) and 517 (presumably suspected) deaths of Mpox have been reported across the continent.
Mpox is endemic to central and west Africa, being present in species of squirrels, rats, and other rodents. While it was identified in monkeys in a Danish lab in 1958 (hence the misnomer ‘monkeypox’), it has probably been around for thousands of years, causing intermittent infections in humans between whom it is spread by close physical contact.
Small outbreaks in Africa mostly went unnoticed by the rest of the world, mainly because they were (as now) small and confined. Mass Smallpox vaccination may also have suppressed numbers still further a few decades ago, as Smallpox is in the same Orthopoxvirus genus of viruses. So, we may be seeing an upward trend of this generally milder illness (fever, chills, and a vesicular rash) over recent decades since Smallpox vaccination ceased. The Smithsonian magazine put an informative summary together in 2022, after the first out-of-Africa outbreak which was spread by sexual contacts within a limited demographic group.
So, here we are in 2024, on the tail of a massively profit-driving (and impoverishing) outbreak called Covid-19 that enabled the largest transfer of wealth from the many to the few in human history. The WHO’s announcement that 5,000 (or less) suspected Mpox cases is a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) allows it to fast-track vaccines through its Emergency Use Listing (EUL) program, bypassing the normal rigor required to approve such pharmaceuticals, and is suggesting Pharma start lining up.
At least one drugmaker is already discussing a supply of 10 million doses before year-end. The business case for this approach, from the corporate viewpoint, is well-proven. So are the harms in countries like DRC, as a mass vaccination program of this nature requires redirection of millions of dollars and thousands of health workers who would otherwise be addressing diseases of far larger burden.
The WHO is a large organization, and while some there have been on the hustings asking for money, others have been working hard to accurately inform the public (a core responsibility of the WHO, which retains some dedicated people). Like much of the WHO’s work in the past, this is thorough and commendable. Some of this information is summarized in the following graphics:
These charts provide data on confirmed cases, where someone with somewhat non-specific symptoms has been tested and shown to have evidence of Mpox virus in blood or secretions. Clearly, not everyone suspected can be tested, as Mpox is a very small issue for people facing civil wars, mass poverty, and vastly more dangerous diseases.
However, the WHO has absorbed a lot of money for outbreak investigation, and so have partner organizations, so we can assume there is a fairly good effort going on to detect and confirm numbers (or where has this money gone?).
In the past 2.5 years, the WHO has confirmed 223 deaths in the whole world, with just six in July 2024 (the time when the WHO Director-General warned the world of a rapidly increasing threat). Note here that 223 deaths are just 0.2% of the 102,997 confirmed cases. In Africa, just 26 deaths have been confirmed in 2024 among 3,562 cases (0.7%), spread across 5 countries (and 12 countries with cases). They are influenza-like mortality rates, not Ebola-like.
As severe cases are more likely to be tested than mild cases, the infection fatality rate may be far lower. We also don’t know (though someone does and should tell us) what the characteristics of those dying are. Most in Africa are reported to be children, so it is likely they are malnourished, otherwise immunocompromised (e.g. HIV), and have susceptibilities that could be addressed.
As is obvious from the third graphic below, nearly all the global deaths listed above were from the previous outbreak in 2022. This was a different clade (variant) and mostly occurred outside of Africa.
It is important to note a few things here. It is difficult to confirm all cases in areas with poor infrastructure and security. Mpox symptoms and signs are also frequently mild and overlap other diseases (e.g. chickenpox or even flu) so many cases may go unnoticed. Notification of results can also lag. However, the 19 confirmed DRC Mpox deaths amongst roughly 40,000 DRC malaria deaths so far this year is about 1 versus 2000. Whichever way you count it, it is not going to become much more significant. That is what the new international emergency looks like in actual data, or if you are the population of DRC at Mpox ground zero. It is likely you would not notice anything at all.
Why has the WHO declared an international emergency? Some claim it helps mobilize resources, which is a bit pathetic. Firstly, grownups should be able to discuss a situation that has persisted for two years in a rational manner and decide what might be needed, without banging a drum. Secondly, an outbreak that is killing a tiny fraction of malaria (or tuberculosis, or HIV) deaths, and far less than those currently dying in war, may not be an international emergency.
And what should be done? Diverting resources from DRC’s major priorities would undoubtedly kill far more than are currently dying from Mpox. It is quite probable that direct adverse events from vaccination alone will kill more than the 19 DRC Mpox victims confirmed this year. We likely undercount Mpox deaths, but we also undercount pharmaceutical deaths.
Perhaps a useful response would be to improve immune competence through nutrition, providing very broad benefits (but completely failing in terms of Pharma profit). Gavi’s half-billion dollars would provide vast and broad-based benefits if applied to sanitation. Perhaps limited, well-targeted vaccination may also help some communities, but there is no business case for such approaches.
What is clear, as noted above, is the following:
1. The data on Mpox, and other competing priorities, must continue to be shown in context, along with costs and opportunity costs of the response.
2. Those who will gain financially from vaccinating millions of people must not be part of the decision-making process (whether or not such a huge resource transfer can possibly be supported for such a small disease burden).
3. The WHO should continue to act with transparency, as the public has an absolute right to know what they are paying for, and the harm (and perhaps benefit) they can expect from it.
The number of Mpox deaths will rise as more are infected, and perhaps as some suspected cases are confirmed. However, we are facing a small problem in an area with far larger ones. It is posing low local risk and minimal global risk. It is not a global emergency, by any sane, rational, public health-based definition.
The rest of the world can respond by sending vaccines and lots of foreigners who need looking after, diverting local health and security personnel and almost certainly killing more DRC residents overall. Or, we can recognize a local problem, support local responses when local populations ask, and concentrate, as the WHO once did, on addressing the underlying causes of endemic disease and inequality. They are the things that make the lives of people in DRC so difficult.
David Bell, Senior Scholar at Brownstone Institute, is a public health physician and biotech consultant in global health. He is a former medical officer and scientist at the World Health Organization (WHO), Programme Head for malaria and febrile diseases at the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND) in Geneva, Switzerland, and Director of Global Health Technologies at Intellectual Ventures Global Good Fund in Bellevue, WA, USA.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Wednesday that the biggest problem Kyiv has faced in its war against Russia is the Western concern for escalation and the risk of provoking Moscow.
“Ever since the beginning of the large-scale invasion, the biggest problem Ukraine has been facing is the domination of the concept of escalation in the decision-making processes among our partners,” Kuleba said, according to Reuters.
The foreign minister’s comments come as Ukraine is pushing hard for the US to allow long-range strikes inside Russian territory using US-provided missiles. Russia has strongly warned against the move and suggested that it would risk World War III.
“The war is always about a lot of hardware: money, weapons, resources but the real problems are always here, in the heads,” Kuleba said.
“Most of our partners are afraid of discussing the future of Russia… This is something that is very upsetting because if we do not speak about the future of the source of threat, then we cannot build strategy.”
Throughout the war, the US and NATO have taken steps that they previously ruled out over escalation concerns, such as providing tanks and fighter jets.
The most recent significant escalation was President Biden’s decision to give Ukraine the greenlight to use US weapons in attacks on Russian border regions. A few months later, Ukraine launched its invasion of Kursk.
Meanwhile Western main battle tanks continue to show up on Russian soil…
Kuleba made the comments during a conversation with Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, who expressed support for allowing Ukraine to launch long-range strikes with NATO weapons. Sikorski said NATO should “let Ukraine fight with whatever it has, with whatever we have delivered them, and let’s deliver them more.”
Big Lots Reportedly Mulls Bankruptcy Amid Consumer Downturn
The theme of a consumer downturn (mainly for low/mid-tier) remains strong.
On Thursday morning, Dollar General missed Wall Street’s profit and sales expectations and cut its full-year forecast, citing that core customers “feel financially constrained.” With this persisting trend, it’s unsurprising that home goods retailer Big Lots may be teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.
Bloomberg reports that Ohio-based Big Lots, with about 1,400 stores nationwide, has mulled over whether a potential bankruptcy filing is the right move in the near term given the slide in sales, which resulted in a multi-year crash of shares trading in New York.
The company is also seeking investors in a bid to avoid Chapter 11, according to one person familiar. The people asked not to be named sharing information about confidential matters. The plans aren’t final and Big Lots’ path may change. -BBG
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Big Lots received a loan earlier this year to help it navigate its liquidity crunch. It has been seeking additional financing in recent weeks.
With liquidity drying up, Big Lots has experienced a sharp decline in sales over the last two years as elevated inflation and high interest rates depress demand for big-ticket discretionary purchases.
Bloomberg noted, “The chain on Aug. 12 approved one-time retention bonuses for its top executives totaling over $5 million. Such payments often precede corporate restructurings, especially in Chapter 11, and serve to keep key management from jumping ship during the effort.”
Shares have crashed nearly 99% since peaking above the $70 handle in mid-2021. Paging ‘Roar Kitty’ – it’s time for stock pump. Maybe he’s too busy Ryan Cohen’s lap dog.
Troubled retailers hurt by a consumer slowdown are yet more evidence that the economy is trending in the wrong direction. Hence, the Fed will likely initiate an interest rate-cutting cycle on Sept. 18.
