When the Cure Becomes Worse than the Disease

By Mickey Fulp, Mercenary Geologist
on 4/30/2020

Folks, you know what my platform is and has always been. So let’s call a spade a spade:

The Wuhan Flu pandemic has wreaked havoc on the world’s economy. I have been trying to reason why this has occurred … but it is illogical.

First of all, the contagion is merely a pandemic. It is not an epidemic.

The Wuhan Flu is a mutation from the same type of corona viruses that cause the common cold. It originated in Wuhan, a city of 11 million people, Hubei province, southeast China in mid-November. China then exported the disease throughout the world with its infected citizenry going for work and New Year vacations thru at least the middle of February. This was also the period when its centrally-planned government was attempting to keep the virus’ actual severity under wraps.

The virus soon spread to other countries and entities worldwide and especially from cruise ships going to South Korea and tourists going to Italy. So far, the worst outbreak outside of China has been in Italy’s most populous region of Lombardy that includes the city of Milan where it was introduced by travelers to and from Wuhan. Italy has the world’s oldest population per capita and the virus has spread like wild fire and has killed the highest percentage of infected people there.

Despite the official propaganda line from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), there is no evidence that the virus originated in the Wuhan “wet market”. As I can attest, China’s wet markets are live food venues where a variety of domestic and wild animals, fish, and seafood are slaughtered and sold; they are notoriously unsanitary.

There is now strong evidence that the virus jumped from purposely infected horseshoe bats to humans in a Chinese virology research lab located less than 300 meters from the aforementioned wet market. In a recent publication, two research scientists at the South China University of Technology wrote that the Wuhan Center for Disease Control (WHCDC) is the likely source and concluded that based on genome sequences, “ the killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan . ”

Closer to home, the Trump Administration is now allowing public health bureaucrats from the National Institute of Health to determine our country’s near-term economic future. This agency’s waffling policies and recommendations, presented in daily briefings and changing day by day and week to week, have already generated a near-term economic recession.

As it stands now, career medical researchers and bureaucrats will determine whether the recession morphs into a full-blown depression.

So again, let’s call a spade a spade. This is simply bureaucratic “covidiocy”. It facilitates a cabal of career government scientists and doctors with a vested interest in dire predictions and doomsday scenarios to shut down half or more of the country’s normal economic output.

Consider this: If their ever-changing computer models and forecasts err to the downside and the final tally is many more infected, hospitalized, and dead than predicted, reputations are disgraced and careers will be ruined.

However, if they present worse-case scenarios and then downgrade these projections every other day or even once a week, the mainstream media will report “encouraging news” and the masses will be placated. When the final results come in, these bureaucrats can claim the better outcome was due to their astute recommendations and policy implementations. Reputations are intact and careers will be rewarded.

At this juncture, the primary concern should be America’s economic health.

We are just now starting to receive the macroeconomic numbers that foreshadow a recessionary collapse. This is no surprise given that the vast majority of our retail and service economy nationwide has been ordered to shutter. As of April 3 market close:

· major US stock markets down 24% to 28% since all-time highs on February 14;

· the heart of the US economy, i.e., the small business sector, down 32% since hitting its all-time high in mid-January;

· 701,000 non-farm payroll jobs lost in March;

· unemployment up from 3.8% in February to 4.4% in March;

· 9.9 million new unemployment claims over the last two weeks;

· 10-year Treasury bonds down from 1.88% to a record low of 0.62%;

· WTI oil down 53% year-to-date; drill rigs down 35% year over year;

· copper price down 23% since January 15.

And this is just the beginning as we are only a couple of weeks into these forced shutdowns. But sadly, our “leaders” have already created an economic recession from a medical event.

Let’s look next at the “deadly corona virus” medical numbers from a layman’s perspective. As of April 5:

· The global Wuhan flu pandemic has 1.2 million documented illnesses and 64,606 deaths.

· There are 310,000 illnesses and 8438 deaths from the virus in the United States.

· The CDC estimates 39 million illnesses, 400,000 hospitalizations, and 24,000 deaths from influenza so far in the 2019-2020 season.

Certainly this Wuhan flu strain has proven to be unusually deadly for the elderly, the unhealthy with serious medical issues, and adults with compromised immune systems. In the US, 80% of deaths are people of age 65 or older. So far, there have been no deaths for anyone under 20 years of age.

Therefore, available data does not in any way, shape, or form warrant public health bureaucrats and their media bandwagoneers spouting fake news based on fake computer models.

This media-stoked fear has begotten panic that has induced irrationality and then spawned hysteria over a new variety of influenza. On average, 36,000 people die of the flu every year in this country and most of them are elderly and/or are in bad health.

But media moguls realize that the mass psychology of a crisis sells advertising. And the politicians know to never let a good crisis go to waste.

So this trumped-up event has given the Fed banksters and the D.C. politicians an excuse to collectively create over $6 trillion in money with mere strokes on a keyboard. These actions alone have ensured an eventual default on the United States’ fiat currency for the third time since 1932.

So what happens next? Well, the politicians are now talking about another massive injection of keyboard currency into the already bloated supply.

Frankly, this whole affair appears to be a very expensive social science experiment to control the hoi polloi.

Draconian actions and totalitarian orders by government, especially at the state and local levels, have quickly eroded and destroyed, at least temporarily, our individual rights and freedoms as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States of America. In various locations in this country, the following are now deemed illegal:

· Assembling peacefully in gatherings.

· Leaving home except for government-sanctioned “essential errands”.

· Practicing one’s religion in a house of worship with fellow supplicants.

Seizure of private property by the state without due process is now allowed upon executive order in California.

Local and state governments have imprisoned the elderly and infirm within their living spaces. Our most vulnerable citizens are isolated and in many instances, alone and lonely. Absolutely no visitors are allowed, including their immediate families.

A significant part of our populace is now under house arrest with no filing of charges, no juries of their peers, no judgments, and no convictions.

Simultaneously, these very same governors and mayors have ordered release of convicted criminals including so-called “non-violent felons” from jails and prisons solely because the socialist health cabal fears they may come down with the flu and infect their cellmates.

Furthermore, the working-class people in this country want to work. Work provides honest and industrious people pride, purpose, value, and a sense of self-worth. Our strong work ethic spans racial, ethnic, cultural, and social classes.

Before the past month of unprecedented government shenanigans, there were more Americans employed than at any other time in our history. Unemployment was at a 50-year low and record numbers of all minorities held jobs.

But now, with no work, no school, no play, no travel, and no social gatherings mandated by government fiat, Americans are stuck in their homes 24/7. What cost will this virus mania extract on the mental and physical health and well-being of the average American family?

These rules have served to make us distrustful, dismissive, and disdainful of our fellow human beings. I know millennial parents who won’t let their kids play with the next-door neighbors’ kids.

And that is just plain wrong.

This invasion of our lives, liberties, and pursuit of happiness will undoubtedly take a huge toll on the nation. Certainly within the next couple of months, there will be a rise in poverty, hunger, domestic violence, child abuse, drug use, addiction, petty misdemeanors, property crimes, violent felonies, and suicides.

If the current regimen goes well into the summer, what might cooped-up, bored, and miscreant teenage boys hooked on video war games conspire to do?

So I will ask this of the politicians, bureaucrats, lobbyists, and pundits: At what point does the purported cure that you have determined to force upon us become worse than the disease?

I submit that we have already reached that paradigm: The cure is worse than the disease.

The doublespeak euphemisms used for implementation of more and more onerous rules, restrictions, and orders are Orwellian. As we progress toward martial law, government Newspeak is the new normal: social distancing, self-isolation, shelter-in-place, mandatory restrictions, containment zones, lockdown, and whatever may come next.

Then there are terms we have heard before including curfew, quarantine, checkpoint, and shutdown. Martial law may be the end game but you may rest assured, they will not call it that.

But if it happens, peaceful resistance, civil unrest, blatant disobedience, and perhaps even violent protest might follow. Will cadres of ordinary, patriotic citizens refuse to obey draconian government orders and rise up to resist their oppressors?

We are now allowing destruction of America’s economy by an unelected, convoluted, and arguably incompetent medical bureaucracy with a socialist agenda. But there is another way and it is not too late to implement a sane approach to what I opine is a nasty case of a really bad flu.

Sweden has wisely decided to live with the contagion, mitigate its effects with recommended social norms and behavior, ask for voluntary compliance, and accept the consequences, whatever they may be. This makes sense and it is apparently working with the country at 6830 cases and 401 deaths. Sweden remains open for business.

Let’s do the same and end this nonsense that is destroying our country. Now!

A final thought and if you will, in commandment form: Thou shalt not covid thy neighbor’s 19 germs.

Q.E.D.

Ciao for now,

Mickey Fulp

Mercenary Geologist

Acknowledgement: Thanks goes to Kirsty Hogg, social media and promotions manager at MercenaryGeologist.com , for ongoing discussions that helped formulate and clarify my thoughts and led to some of the word plays in this musing.

The Mercenary Geologist Michael S. “Mickey” Fulp is a Certified Professional Geologist with a B.Sc. in Earth Sciences with honor from the University of Tulsa, and M.Sc. in Geology from the University of New Mexico. Mickey has 40 years of experience as an exploration geologist and analyst searching for economic deposits of base and precious metals, industrial minerals, uranium, coal, oil and gas, and water in North and South America, Europe, and Asia .

Mickey worked for junior explorers, major mining companies, private companies, and investors as a consulting economic geologist for over 20 years, specializing in geological mapping, property evaluation, and business development. In addition to Mickey’s professional credentials and experience, he is high-altitude proficient, and is bilingual in English and Spanish. From 2003 to 2006, he made four outcrop ore discoveries in Peru, Nevada, Chile, and British Columbia.

Mickey is well-known and highly respected throughout the mining and exploration community due to his ongoing work as an analyst, writer, and speaker.

Contact : Contact@MercenaryGeologist.com

Disclaimer and Notice : I am not a certified financial analyst, broker, or professional qualified to offer investment advice. Nothing in any report, commentary, this website, interview, and other content constitutes or can be construed as investment advice or an offer or solicitation or advice to buy or sell stock or any asset or investment. All of my presentations should be considered an opinion and my opinions may be based upon information obtained from research of public documents and content available on the company’s website, regulatory filings, various stock exchange websites, and stock information services, through discussions with company representatives, agents, other professionals and investors, and field visits. My opinions are based upon information believed to be accurate and reliable, but my opinions are not guaranteed or implied to be so. The opinions presented may not be complete or correct; all information is provided without any legal responsibility or obligation to provide future updates. I accept no responsibility and no liability, whatsoever, for any direct, indirect, special, punitive, or consequential damages or loss arising from the use of my opinions or information. The information contained in a report, commentary, this website, interview, and other content is subject to change without notice, may become outdated, and may not be updated. A report, commentary, this website, interview, and other content reflect my personal opinions and views and nothing more. All content of this website is subject to international copyright protection and no part or portion of this website, report, commentary, interview, and other content may be altered, reproduced, copied, emailed, faxed, or distributed in any form without the express written consent of Michael S. (Mickey) Fulp, MercenaryGeologist.com LLC.