A version of this article by Porter Stansberry first appeared on April 17, 2020 in The Stansberry Digest, published by Stansberry & Associates Investment Research, an independent investment research firm. You can visit them at www.stansberryresearch.com.
Here’s a Prediction
In a “bad year” for the flu, between 50,000 and 100,000 Americans die from the virus. I’m willing to bet that by the end of this year, roughly the same number of people will have died from this virus.
And I’m also willing to bet that there’s zero difference in either the total per capita number who become infected and the mortality rate between our country (which ordered a shutdown) and Sweden’s, which has refused to order anyone to shut down their business or stay in their homes.
If you accept that the virus had been circulating in our population for months by the time the lockdown orders arrived (which is certainly the case) and if you know it’s highly contagious, then ordering everyone into their homes in mid-March was closing the barn door when the horses were already long gone.
What does work to control the spread of a novel virus? Herd immunity. Humans have immune systems. They work great, especially in younger people. We can handle viruses.
What we should do is tell older and sicker people to put on a mask. Wear rubber gloves. Avoid crowds at all costs. Avoid hospitals. Stay home whenever you can.
We should have told everyone else: Go about your lives. Yes, we should also add that some of you – probably about 20% – are going to get this novel coronavirus this year. (Normally about 9% of the population gets the flu every year… so your chances of catching COVID-19 this year are about double what you’d normally face with the regular flu.)
And if you get it, it’s probably going to suck. But the younger you are and the healthier you are, the more likely it is that you won’t have any symptoms at all.
So, let’s not cancel school. Let’s let the kids go and get exposed to this virus when they are young, when they can handle it, and when they can quickly develop immunity.
That’s the best way to build the herd immunity we need – allow everyone who can manage the virus to get exposed. As quickly as possible. After all, the sooner the herd immunity we need develops naturally, the safer we will all be.
If the media hadn’t gotten hold of this story and if our political leaders hadn’t panicked this year would have just been a really bad flu season – nothing more.
And whether you agree with me or not, one thing is certain… Hiding in our homes will not make us any safer – not for long. As soon as we leave our isolation, the virus will spread again. There’s no way to stop a virus that’s this contagious and this widespread in a population this large.
It will take at least a year to build a vaccine. And until then, what we desperately need is for people who aren’t at risk of dying to expose themselves and build immunity.
And guess what… That’s exactly what’s going to happen – eventually. The only question is when. It can happen six months’ from now if we want to cripple our economy and lose $10 trillion to $20 trillion (plus all of our liberties). Or it can happen in about six weeks if we all just go back to work and deal with it like adults.
So What Should We Do?
If you’re over 60 or if you’re in poor health, by all means, do everything you can to avoid catching the flu this year. The hospital isn’t going to be able to help you. You have to make sure you don’t get sick!
But if you’re in good health, and especially if you’re under 50, simply ignore everything and live a normal life. It’s no big deal.
Interestingly, if we had respected people’s civil liberties, that’s almost certainly what would have happened. A lot of people would have gotten sick at first because nobody knew a new virus was circulating. But as soon as people saw what was happening, the old and the sick would have taken much greater precautions. The rest of us would have gotten exposed – probably about 20% of the population in 60 to 90 days. And then it would have burned out as immunity in the population grew – just like the regular flu.
Meanwhile, there are tens of millions more people who have far more to fear from the economic consequences of these policies than they have of the virus.
And guess what?
There’s No Way to Develop Immunity from the State
This situation sets a precedent that will surely be exploited for years to come. The government’s getting used to ordering us all around. It isn’t going to stop.
Meanwhile, God gave us the ability to reason – to judge for ourselves what risks to take and which to avoid. God also gave all of us the liberty to live our lives as we see fit. Our leaders don’t have the right to make these choices for us. When we let them, we doom our country to the worst possible outcomes.
Just imagine what John Hancock, John Henry, or Paul Revere would say to themselves in our current situation. Do you have any idea what our Founding Fathers were up against?
They took on the greatest army in the world with little more than a bunch of starving farmers. They had no navy… against the greatest navy in the world. They didn’t even have the support of all Americans. And if they lost … they would have all been hanged for treason.
Why take on those terrible odds? For liberty… to establish the greatest society the world had ever seen – a grand experiment to find out how much better our world could become with civil rights for the common man and free markets.
And what do you think these men would say today, watching a governor ordering millions of people to stay locked up in their apartments while their businesses fail? Can you imagine what our founders would say looking at us cowering in our homes like whipped dogs?
I guess we’ve all forgotten about Valley Forge, where two-thirds of our soldiers died because of the flu! Trust me, they didn’t have ventilators either. But did George Washington go home? Hell no.
If our country’s willingness to kowtow to the most blatantly unconstitutional orders in the history of our nation doesn’t bother you because you still believe in the “common good”… or because you buy into the big lie that we’re all in this together… I think you should be ashamed of yourself.
First, because you’re naïve to have any faith at all in our leaders’ ability or willingness to make good decisions. They don’t even know how many people have the virus already and they never bothered to find out!
They’ve completely ignored the Diamond Princess cruise ship case study, the German data, and the wastewater studies. They’re doing the only thing they can with their very limited understanding of this virus: Ordering everyone to stay home. Meanwhile, plenty of hard evidence shows why this strategy won’t work and isn’t necessary.
But beyond all of the facts and the medicine, there’s another reason I believe every American ought to be ashamed of the way our government has behaved. We’ve acted just like the communists in China behaved – ordering everyone around, telling them they can’t travel, telling them they can’t work.
That ain’t what we do here.
By all means, if you want to wear a mask, be my guest. And if you are older or if you have health problems, please, take sensible precautions. But those decisions are rightfully yours to make…
We aren’t in this together. You have your health and your priorities… And I’ve got mine.
I hope you’ll join me in calling out anyone who supports these tyrannical and unconstitutional new laws. I believe every American should willingly risk death before surrendering an iota of his liberty.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive… those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” – C. S. Lewis