Skip to content

The EU really are ghastly little shits, aren’t they?

Two examples from today:

The EU only deemed the UK’s regulatory regime for euro-denominated clearing to be equivalent to its own for a temporary period after Brexit.

That period is due to expire next June – raising the risk that financial institutions based in the bloc would be forced to find a clearing house in the EU after that date. About a quarter of the business carried out in the UK is denominated in euros.

By contrast the EU has deemed the US regulatory regime to be equivalent on a more permanent basis, despite the UK having identical rules to Brussels.

Can’t have euro-clearing in London, must be inside the EU. Can have euro-clearing in New York, despite the need to have euro-clearing inside the EU.

Plus:

Lobbyists in Brussels waged a campaign against the rollout of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid vaccine by claiming it was insufficiently European, a new book by the jab’s inventors has said.

Opponents allegedly told politicians last year that they should not order doses of the injection because BioNTech, a German company, had teamed up with US behemoth Pfizer rather than working with another company based in Europe.

According to the book – written by journalist Joe Miller in collaboration with BioNTech’s founders Dr Ugur Sahin and Dr Özlem Türec – lobbyists branded Pfizer “the epitome of cold capitalism” and claimed: “If we give one euro to CureVac, or Sanofi, or a European company, it is one euro for Europe. If we give it to BioNTech, 50 cents will always end up in the US.”

Missing, of course, the point that the purpose of trade is to gain the goods, here a vaccine that actually works. As opposed to the Sanofi and whatever that one that begins with a V is.

41 thoughts on “The EU really are ghastly little shits, aren’t they?”

  1. Could I be sufficiently wawful and woke to suggest that it was all wicked waycism by the evil whites who run the EU because the founders of BioNTech were Mahometan Turks (more or less)?

    But I’m sure the EU would point out that it’s only the unwoke who can be racist.

  2. Bloke in North Korea (Germany province)

    Well, P- is the epitome of cold capitalism. They have absolutely zero problem with politicians, media, and social media (no doubt fed in part by an outsourced arms-length black op to keep management hands clean) making ludicrous quackish claims about the product that would (theoretically at least) see P- staff or contractors jailed for making.

    Like any criminal, they don’t care what the cost to everyone else of their actions is, only what they gain. The now irreparable damage to society by the plainly obviously failed mass vaccination strategy is an irrelevance compared to next quarter’s earnings. To the extent mass vaccination may actually be putting evolutionary pressure on the bug to escape vaccines, the cold capitalist would be delighted with that. Boosters forever!

  3. @ BiNKGP
    Governments have power to control the cold capitalism of Pfizer by issuing licences to local firms to manufacture drugs to over-ride Pfizer’s demands for unreasonable levels of royalty payments and set a reasonable level of royalties. I am old enough to remember that extremely left-wing Health Minister Enoch Powell doing so.

  4. It is not in big Pharma’s interest to cure people. It is in their interest to keep them alive. The vaccine seems perfectly to fit this motivation.

  5. Philip: uncommented on by big media but up on the VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System) they are reporting an average of 70deaths per day in the USA in the recently vaccinated since mid Julyish. Back in 2011 a critical study pronounced the system reported at best 10% of serious reactions and nothing has been done since to improve efficiency.

  6. “financial institutions based in the bloc would be forced to find a clearing house in the EU after that date. About a quarter of the business carried out in the UK is denominated in euros.”

    So, that business goes to Paris, Frankfurt, wherever?

    Or would it just go to New York instead? Would Paris and Frankfurt actually lose clearing to New York?

  7. To the extent mass vaccination may actually be putting evolutionary pressure on the bug to escape vaccines, the cold capitalist would be delighted with that. Boosters forever!

    Don’t think there can be any “may” about it. Mass vaccination during a pandemic can’t not result in vaccine resistant strains, particularly as the vaccine is non-sterilising.

    If antibody dependent enhancement rears its ugly head then a lot of vaccinated people may die. If this includes the kids who are now being “encouraged” to become guinea pigs, then I don’t think there will be enough plod and bodyguards to protect the cold capitalists and their politicians and advisors from untidy consequences.

  8. Wot @PJF said.

    I struggle to explain this to people at work. Vaccine escape ‘is a risk’ but so is making vaccine resistant virulent strains. After all you need symptoms to be good at spreading. If the vaccine suppresses symptoms you’ll select for variants that give worse symptoms even in a vaccinated individual.

    This isn’t going to end well.

  9. LJH, there are usually 8,000 deaths per day in the US. Half the population is vaccinated. 70 deaths per day in the “recently vaccinated” doesn’t sound significant.

  10. Napsjam

    You missed ljh’s 10%. And – notwithstanding that we can’t really know for certain – that percentage isn’t an unlikely order of magnitude in this context, both for VAERS and Yellow Card generally based on past analysis.

  11. PF, I certainly didn’t understand that point. “At best” 10% of something ten years ago evidencing something or other about “efficiency”? Define serious reaction, explain what was measured ten years ago that has anything to do with the current vaccines (did the tech even exist ten years ago?), then tell me why the 70 a day number signifies anything.

  12. A medic will give a better response, but briefly: both VAERS and Yellow Card (as voluntary reporting systems) are generally considered to understate reactions by between circa 1 and 2 orders of magnitude. The higher number is likely to be for less serious reactions. Ljh was referencing a study from a decade ago, but this isn’t relevant to just a decade ago, these systems have been running for ~ 30 years or so. Per their own data, there have been more deaths reported under VAERS/Yellow Card for the Covid vaccines over the last few months than for every other death reported on those systems over that period of some 30 years, and despite (for example) all the high volume flu vaccines delivered through that period. There is a lot you could follow up on if you are interested? You are right: 70 signifies nothing, the numbers are significantly higher.

  13. Bloke in North Dorset

    I’ll point out again, we’re giving this jab to the sick and those with comorbidities as a priority.

    So, are those reported deaths sicknesses in the otherwise healthy or with those who were a short walk from death’s door?

  14. BiND

    If that’s in response to VAERS/Yellow Card, actually we’re giving it to everyone. A useful part of that analysis is the comparative, ie with past reporting. And which – in the case of flu – really was given in greater percentages to the elderly or vulnerable.

    Did any of you see this:

    https://www.bitchute.com/video/wPViyCe7UKMv/

    Dr Hoffe explaining that 62% of those he tested in his own practice, one week after the Moderna jab, showed up with elevated d-dimer? In his words “ie, clotting”. With 6 of that sample having permanently damaged lungs. I read elsewhere (but can’t currently verify it) that his sample was circa 900. It’s his own practice, which suggests that at worst that that might not be an order of magnitude out.

    Boosters? Cumulative effects over time?

  15. Bloke in North Korea (Germany province)

    “Don’t think there can be any “may” about it. ”

    I’m being scientifically cautious there. I tread thin enough ice every day, considering who butters my bread.

    “both VAERS and Yellow Card (as voluntary reporting systems) are generally considered to understate reactions by between circa 1 and 2 orders of magnitude.”

    I think it is fair to assume a high degree of attention bias in this case, so the underreporting is probably not as bad as it was with past “routine” vaccinations.

    At best, it turns it into an apples v oranges comparison, which fucks up so much of the data we have to try and wade through. I have no doubt that national statistical offices and other bodies are intentionally making it difficult to make comparisons by pulling a range of numerator and denominator tricks, definitional tricks, endpoint fallacies, and switching between absolute and relative comparisons.

    Now we move on in Germany to counting hospital bed occupancy rather than positive test results as the determiner of all things. Will that be corrected for the fact that absent pressure of the seriously ill (risk group already dead or vaccinated) the less seriously ill (who would have been sent home to recover with lemsip) are admitted in their stead, keeping the “corona admissions” up? You bet not!

    “I’ll point out again, we’re giving this jab to the sick and those with comorbidities as a priority.

    So, are those reported deaths sicknesses in the otherwise healthy or with those who were a short walk from death’s door?”

    Well we have vaccinated well over 50% of the entire population in Germany and UK. This was a valid criticism early on, but not so much now.

    IT is also worth comparing (not that you can) vaccine and covid deaths on the same definition – 28 days post test, to 28 days post-vax. Note that the P- study was not based on numbers for _infection_ on an intent to treat basis, but only started counting at dose 2 + 28 days. I missed that nasty little trick when I first looked at the data.

    “If antibody dependent enhancement rears its ugly head then a lot of vaccinated people may die. If this includes the kids who are now being “encouraged” to become guinea pigs, then I don’t think there will be enough plod and bodyguards to protect the cold capitalists and their politicians and advisors from untidy consequences.”

    Sadly I think too many people are stuck to their sunk costs, “all in this together” bullshit. Losing one of your children to a superstrain or vaccine side effects is just the sad price you have to pay to save granny. Yes, I really believe that this will be trotted out if we end up there, and the psychomanipulators on SAGE or elsewhere are already wargaming the messaging.

  16. Bloke in North Korea (Germany province)

    And further bear in mind with vaccine deaths, a long tail can easily vanish in the noise. The epidemic pattern of coronavirus-associated deaths is clearly visible. VIOXX killed an estimated 100,000 Americans and no one noticed, because it happened over a long drawn-out time. As will the lockdown deaths, and the vaccine deaths if we end up in booster hell.

  17. Bloke in North Dorset

    PF,

    I’m not making any claims either way, just pointing out that we don’t usually give vaccines to the old, frail and those with serious illnesses, with the exception of the flu virus.

    We also don’t have any other diseases doing the rounds that have an age distribution like Covid-19, as far aw I’m aware.

    As BiNK says, it’s an apples and oranges comparison.

    It’s strange that nobody else is reporting those clots, I don’t believe that every doctor in tje world has bought in to the conspiracy and I will probably have the booster. I wouldn’t have the vaccine if I was under 30.

  18. Numbers of incidents in VAERS are of little significance. Anyone can make a report and there is no checking to see if the reported effect was actually caused by the vaccine. The data is only useful for suggesting what research to do – not for drawing conclusions.

    @Andrew Again – “you need symptoms to be good at spreading”

    No. You don’t. For example chlamydia is a very widespread disease which causes no symptoms in the majority of those infected. And, even if symptoms were required, that doesn’t matter. A vaccine which prevents serious illness but allows mild symptoms is perfectly acceptable (and, in fact, that seems to be what is happening with covid). The selection pressure on the disease helps this – people who are seriously ill are less likely to be out and about spreading disease, while those with the mildest symptoms (or none) will expose many more people.

    @PF

    Dr. Hoffe is clearly wrong and it is a mystery why he does not realise this himself. Vaccines are thoroughly tested before being approved, with much larger numbers of people than he has as patients (see https://www.modernatx.com/covid19vaccine-eua/providers/clinical-trial-data for Moderna). If it was causing actual harm, this would have been noticed. If Dr. Hoffe measures something which causes no symptoms, that’s irrelevant. If he measures something which causes symptoms, that’s merely grounds for testing in a trial – note on that page about the Moderna vaccine that there were reports of adverse reactions among those given the placebo. And, of course, if the spike protein causes some harm, that means the disease will cause that harm more severely since a vaccine produces a limited amount of spike protein, while infection will keep producing more and more until your immune system completely eradicates the virus.

  19. Charles

    Sorry, but your answer looks like a boiler plate denial issued by a pharmaceutical company. Is that the best they can do?

    What is it that Hoffe is wrong about? The % measurement of d-dimer that he recorded? The link between d-dimer and clotting? The 6 (of 900) that he reported as having permanently damaged lungs? Or maybe it was something else in the clip?

    And your comment about the disease automatically being worse than the vaccine is nonsense, as you well know. With the majority of people, the disease is fought off before the stage that it causes vascular damage, and that’s for those that catch it; whereas the vaccine (by its very nature) is always going to risk a vascular reaction for anyone that takes the vaccine.

    BiND

    Yes, I’d like to know more too. Hoffe does comment on elevated d-dimer having been found elsewhere, but it’s simply been dismissed? So why aren’t things like this being discussed, if only that we can all received a more informed / useful kind of answer? And one that doesn’t cause some of us to wonder whether there is more to this. We do know that doctors (in the west) are being gagged, but must be more to it than that? Hoffe, btw, did comment (elsewhere) that, when he put these issues to his local senior medical wallahs, he was told quite firmly that any reactions that he had observed were purely coincidental and were nothing to do with the vaccine… And which of course he knew (from his own comparative experiences over decades) was complete and utter tosh!

  20. Bloke in North Korea (Germany province)

    “The data is only useful for suggesting what research to do – not for drawing conclusions.”

    This is not correct. Post-marketing events get added to product labels on little more than a hunch. Once you have a product on the market there are all kinds of barriers to research, and rare events do not get picked up in adequate numbers in even the largest trials to be “statistically” evaluated. Safety of medicines is a huge minefield.

    “No. You don’t. For example chlamydia… “. We aren’t fucking talking about chlamydia, in case you hadn’t noticed.

    “Vaccines are thoroughly tested before being approved, with much larger numbers of people than he has as patients…”

    N=30,000 with mean 3 months follow up is not an adequate trial for treating N=7,000,000,000 with mean 60 years follow up. Especially if you want to treat N=7,000,000,000 every 6 months ad infinitum.

    “Sorry, but your answer looks like a boiler plate denial issued by a pharmaceutical company. Is that the best they can do?”

    Yeah, this looks very much to me like the 77th are watching.

  21. Worth noting the vaccines are not meant to protect against the Sars-Cov-2 coronavirus. They generate antibodies and memory cells against a *bit* of the Sars-Cov-2 coronavirus that sticks out. It’s a blooming modern miracle imv that we have a jab worth taking to tackle a coronavirus so soon, if you’re over 30 that is, but it’s a jab that tries to teach you to recognise the spike protein only, not the membrane protein or the whole thing.
    But talk of vaccine immune escape is fear-mongering Gurdasani type stuff. There was never anything for the virus to escape from. The door was always open.
    We have massive reductions in severe disease and death now. And that is frigging amazing

    On a separate note: if AUS, TW and NZ can vaccinate, then isolate the elderly and care home residents as per Great Barrington, and let it rip between Christmas and Easter next year, then their strategy overall will have proved right. That would mean telling the elderly and people in care in the first week of Jan 22 that they will die alone if they fall ill for another reason in the next 12 weeks, and won’t see any relatives until Easter 22. Big bonus payments will be due to care workers who live on site for that period.

    PRC though is fooked. Their vaccine not sufficiently effective. Will have off-on local lockdowns for the whole of next year. Imv of course.

  22. Bloke in North Dorset

    PF

    “ We do know that doctors (in the west) are being gagged, but must be more to it than that? ”

    That is utter bollocks and in the same camp, as the 9/11 truffers and Pizzagate pushers.

  23. Bloke in North Korea (Germany province)

    “There was never anything for the virus to escape from. The door was always open.”

    Offer the bug many doors
    It opens not one
    The narrow path leads to doom

  24. We have massive reductions in severe disease and death now. And that is frigging amazing

    Lots of places have massive reductions in severe disease and death now but low levels of vaccinations. Uttar Pradesh (pop. 240m) in India has virtually no cases, let alone illnesses; their vaccination level is 5%.

    Looking at the online stats pages is always interesting. There is little consistency over countries in the response of the virus to vaccine programs. Sometimes it looks good, sometimes not. Amusingly (darkly) in Israel, the current case rate is directly proportional to the vaccine distribution (both up).

  25. That is utter bollocks and in the same camp, as the 9/11 truffers and Pizzagate pushers.

    Doctors, healthcare workers to be punished for anti-vax COVID claims
    https://www.smh.com.au/national/doctors-healthcare-workers-to-be-punished-for-anti-vax-covid-claims-20210310-p579dk.html

    – “Doctors, nurses and pharmacists who spread COVID anti-vaccination claims will face harsh penalties, including being stripped of their ability to practise, by the medical watchdog.”

    The only reason you don’t know this stuff is because you don’t want to.

  26. SpunkyMonkey Reuters Very Independent And Very Objective Fact Check

    LMAO

    BiND

    Really? I can only comment on what I personally see and hear and if your experience directly contradicts that, I’m not going to argue. I’d love to see more open debate / discussion and which (quite clearly) we are not seeing. I guess make of that what you will.

  27. Bloke in North Dorset

    “ “Doctors, nurses and pharmacists who spread COVID anti-vaccination claims will face harsh penalties, including being stripped of their ability to practise, by the medical watchdog.” “

    False claims. There’s enough people out there doing research and do you really think threats like that will silence doctors who have evidence? The likes of a Richard Horton at the Lancet revel in taking on big pharma.

    Please note I’m arguing against your conspiracy theories not that there couldn’t be a problem.

  28. False claims.

    The fuck?

    From the mainstream media news article:
    + + + + +
    The national medical boards and the Australian Health Practitioner Regulatory Agency (AHPRA) released a joint directive warning healthcare practitioners that they risk regulatory action if they spout false or deceptive misinformation to patients or on social media that could undermine the national vaccination program as the AstraZeneca vaccine rollout begins.

    “There is no place for anti-vaccination messages in professional health practice, and any promotion of anti-vaccination claims including on social media, and advertising may be subject to regulatory action,” spokesman for the medical boards and Pharmacy Board chairman Brett Simmonds said.

    The joint statement was supported by every national health professional board, including the medical, nursing and midwifery, pharmacy, dental, chiropractic, Chinese medicine, paramedicine and osteopathy boards of Australia.
    + + + + +

    . . . your conspiracy theories . . .

    Covid is a religion and you’re a blind worshipper.

  29. Bloke in North Dorset

    “ Covid is a religion and you’re a blind worshipper.”

    You’ve no idea about my attitude towards Covid, only my attitude towards conspiracy theories that claim the whole medical industry has been silenced.

    I’m against mask, lockdowns, compulsory vaccines for starters.

    And if there s a conspiracy to silence doctors and researchers why am I currently reading about research in to Covid vaccine-induced myocarditis?

    https://twitter.com/taka_tut/status/1438252553767170049?s=21

  30. @BiND

    I suspect that you are worried because you’ve taken the shot, and you can’t bring yourself to confront the fact that it may well kill you. It’s human nature.

  31. Actually, ‘may well’ is putting it too strongly. But I know anecdotally of four or five people in middle age who dropped dead within a week or so of being jabbed. I know again anecdotally or two or three people of a similar age who died with a +ive Covid diagnosis. It doesn’t mean much, but I won’t be having this jab just yet.

  32. BiND

    I would suggest that there is a large difference between:

    “conspiracy theories that claim the whole medical industry has been silenced”, which clearly they haven’t – there are lots of people like Heneghan, Gupta, Lee, Malone and many others that have put out a counter perspective.

    and actions for example such as:

    “The national medical boards and the Australian Health Practitioner Regulatory Agency (AHPRA) released a joint directive warning healthcare practitioners that they risk regulatory action”, which are rife throughout and have clearly had a silencing effect on a lot of medics who consequently won’t take the chance of putting their heads above the parapet at all, and (crucially) including when talking to their patients.

    The “gagging” orders (maybe a poor choice of word on my part) have also restricted fuller debate both in the mainstream and also in part on the Silicon Valley social media platforms where dissent against formally approved positions can often be taken down, and which combined is where the vast majority of people get their news from. Any debate that I read usually comes from alternative media (where it can’t be censored, but which the majority will never see), and those doctors speaking out perhaps tend more to being nearer retirement, ie they can afford to ignore any direct or implicit threats being made.

    Hence, no, imho not “That is utter bollocks and in the same camp, as the 9/11 truffers and Pizzagate pushers.”

  33. Bloke in North Korea (Germany province)

    PF,

    You should know by now that anyone who tentatively suggests that maybe we should reconsider forcibly vaccinating 6 month-old babies with boosters every 4 months indefinitely is actually a tin foil hat wearing far-right nazi conspiracy theorist spreading misinformation about the jab containing chips that connect directly to Bill Gates’ lair, and they should not be issued a vaccine passport even if jabbed and boosted because that is also a conspiracy theory.

    Don’t you read the papers?

  34. And if there s a conspiracy to silence doctors and researchers why am I currently reading about research in to Covid vaccine-induced myocarditis?

    https://twitter.com/taka_tut/status/1438252553767170049?s=21

    It was simply a factual commentary of a research study (on that thread)? Although factual comments in the past have been taken down by facebook or twitter, simply because (for example) they contradicted the formal WHO position.

    NK

    And which, in any sane world, would be the clearest wake-up call for anyone still fervently taking their blue pills that something is very, very wrong!

  35. Ignoring the paranoid comments above, I should like to mention the M&S announcement that it has had to close all its franchise stores in France because the French delay deliveries of sandwiches and chilled foods illustrates Tim’s headline.

  36. the M&S announcement that it has had to close all its franchise stores in France because the French delay deliveries of sandwiches and chilled foods

    Indeed, John. And whom does that inconvenience? I doubt M&S made much profit from their French operation, but it employed lots of French people who will now join the growing ranks of unemployed across the puddle. Still, nothing must get in the way of le grand projet.

  37. “the M&S announcement that it has had to close all its franchise stores in France because the French delay deliveries of sandwiches and chilled foods”
    Import them into Rotterdam then drive them into France.

Comments are closed.

Can you help support The Blog? If you can spare a few pounds you can donate to our fundraising campaign below. All donations are greatly appreciated and go towards our server, security and software costs. 25,000 people per day read our sites and every penny goes towards our fight against for independent journalism. We don't take a wage and do what we do because we enjoy it and hope our readers enjoy it too.