By Jeffrey A. Tucker

The sudden economic lockdown of March 2020, the world over, was one of the more shocking moments in history. The very core of the economic problem from the beginning of recorded time was getting more of what people needed to them in a way that was sustainable given the inherent scarcities of the state of nature.

Regardless of the system, creating wealth was the stated goal, and humanity gradually discovered that trade, investment, marketing, and access to more via travel and creativity was the way forward.

All in an instant, all those considerations were put on the back burner to combat what was supposed to be a deadly disease. What’s more, the belief was that ending economic activity, at least that deemed to be nonessential, was the path toward solving the health crisis.

For how long? It was initially advertised to be two weeks. But as time went on and the lockdown period was extended longer and longer, it became clear that the whole point was to wait for a vaccine. This was based on the evidence-free supposition that the whole population was under threat and that the shot would fix the problem.

The world economy crashed – entirely by intention and by force – as never before seen in modern times. As Trump said at the time, even as he greenlighted the lockdowns, no one had ever heard of anything like this. That’s because it is crazy and deeply dangerous. There is no such thing as turning a global economy off and then on again as if it had a breaker switch to pull and push again when the time came.

Of the attempt, here are ten general observations about the results.

1. The labor markets have never recovered. Both labor participation and employment/population ratios remain below what they were in 2019. Maybe this is the result of retirement. Maybe it is disability. Maybe it is just demoralization. Regardless, we never got back to normal. All the talk of the great job machine since 2021 is nothing but people finding work again after having been displaced during lockdowns or new people coming into the market.

The job market has not been “hot” by any standard. Monthly data reports institutional surveys, which double count, but rarely household surveys which show continuing weakness. The divergence between the two has never been higher. We are nowhere near a pre-lockdown trend.

2. Stimulus was wiped out by inflation. When the checks started arriving directly in bank accounts, people were doing absolutely nothing at home, and business was getting revenue from government even when their doors were closed, it seemed like some Nirvana had dawned. Riches were flowing from heaven. That lasted about 18 months. Once inflation came along, the purchasing power of those dollars was zapped away. Money creation had been on a level never before seen in modern times; some $6 trillion was created out of thin air to buy stunning amounts of debt. It was all taxed away in the most ancient scheme of tricking the public.

3. Retail sales and wholesale factory orders are not up. Among all the usual data releases, only the GDP numbers are routinely adjusted for inflation. For most reports, you have to do that independently. Retail sales and factory orders are reported in nominal terms, which works fine in normal times but in inflationary times, this habit produces absurdities. It ends up clocking more spending on the same goods and services simply because everything is more expensive.

EJ Antoni has been all over this point. Even adjusting usually severely underreported inflation shows that neither retail nor wholesale has genuinely risen. Again, these adjustments are based on conventional CPI data so the actual reality is much worse.

4. Output has not increased. In the conventional telling, the lockdowns created an instant recession but it only lasted a couple of months. Once the stimulus was released and the economy opened up a bit, the boom reversed all the damage. We’ve been growing moderately ever since.

In other words, the conventional data tells the story of the most implausible scenario, a beautiful lockdown that did no net damage but merely paused economic life until everything went back to normal. But what if this is completely wrong? How could it be? There are two major factors: the inclusion of government spending as constituting economic growth and an inflation adjustment that is lower even than the CPI, one crafted especially for use in national income statistics.

Everyone knows today that the statistical prosperity of wartime in World War II was not real due to the inclusion of government as the main contributor to supposed economic output. Government debt as a percentage of GDP has reached and surpassed wartime levels in the last four years. This should tell us something important about the credibility of this seeming recovery.

5. The inflation data is fake. According to the official data, the dollar of January 2020 has sustained 82 percent of its value, which is to say it has lost only 18 percent of value over four years. Think about this in your own life, based on your bills, your shopping, and what you can see with your own eyes. Think back to the good old days of 2019. In what world is it even vaguely plausible that the prices you pay (or consider paying but then decline to pay) have gone up only 18 percent?

How is the CPI able to render price increases this low? Because the data excludes interest rates, homeowners insurance, taxes, shrinkflation, and added fees. Data on health insurance prices are adjusted downwards for medical consumption. The data on home prices is fed through a wildly complicated formula called homeowners equivalent rent. It has become a fantasy. In the chart below, the red line is excluded from CPI in favor of the blue line.

Even on specifics, the Bureau of Labor Statistics can’t seem to reflect actual industry prices. The BLS has food prices up 26 percent since 2019. But industry data has grocery up 35 per. The least price increases are in retail liquor (11 percent), which is precisely why cocktails, wine, and beer are up so much at restaurants: it’s a good place to extract profit margins.

Then you have the black box of hedonic adjustments, which allow bureaucrats to re-render the price of any product with changed quality with some perception that, after all, you don’t mind paying more for higher quality, so therefore it is not really increasing in price.

Finally, you have the effective exclusion of most main forms of shrinkflation and added fees. How much does all this add to the CPI? We don’t really know. It’s not wildly impossible that real inflation over four years has been 30 percent or 50 percent or higher. Adjust all the other data for that and you gain a completely different picture of what is happening.

6. Trade blocs have formed and will not save us. When all supply chains in the world froze in March 2020, and then gradually reopened based on national politics, we saw the fraying of 70 years of global integration. The chip manufacturers moved from supply for cars and other industrial goods in the US to laptops and gaming machines in the Asian sphere of influence. Soon after the opening, the US de-dollarized Russian assets, giving BRICS new incentive and energy to become more robust. For years later, the new shape of the world is becoming apparent: it’s all about spheres of political influence, thus shattering a driving force of global economic growth for many decades.

7. Property rights are not secure. Never before in US history have so many small businesses been shut down coast to coast with such brutality. When they opened again, it was often only at throttled capacity, giving a huge boost to big over small restaurants and hotels. This was all a foundational attack on property rights, the very core of a functioning economic life. This surely shook the psychology of business formation nationwide. Though we have no empirical data on this, it is still the case that a state that attacks property this way cannot expect a thriving world of business startups. If your business can be shut down for such strange reasons, why start one at all? This is the sort of institutional problem that causes economic decay in imperceptible ways.

8. The debt is out of control; personal, corporate, and government. Plenty of people have written about the problem of the government debt, the interest on which three-quarters of taxes are now directed to pay.

The ship of corporate debt sailed long ago with the wild experiment in zero interest rates by the Federal Reserve after 2008. Rates were reversed to deal with inflation. The resulting high rates are deeply painful for any non-public business that depends on leverage for its operations:

The consumer debt problem is more striking still: in times of high interest, savings should be going up, not down, and debt should be going down not up. The opposite is happening simply because real income is falling dramatically and has been for three years. Even using conventional CPI data, we have not yet recovered from the lockdowns.

9. CBDCs are essential to the plan. A major ambition of the Covid response was the creation of a universal vaccine passport. It was deployed first in New York. The entire city was closed in all its public facilities to the unvaccinated. No one refusing the shot was permitted in restaurants, bars, libraries, or theaters. Boston then replicated the plan, and so did New Orleans and Chicago. It faltered because business complained and also the software failed, despite the tens of millions spent. All these efforts were reversed but the plan itself revealed the larger agenda: control through data collection and enforcement. The ambition is not gone and will likely come back but a better and more comprehensive path is the Central Bank Digital Currency, now being deployed in many parts of the world. It allows universal surveillance, timed currency expirations, and directed spending rationing to reflect political priorities. There is no question that the elites want this.

10. Financial markets will thrive until they do not. So far, in the course of the last crazy four years, we have been spared a serious financial crisis either in stocks or banks. This is not entirely unusual in the midst of a wild expansion of money and credit. After hitting prices and wages, the new money flows into financials, the rise of which is seen as fantastic news rather than simple price inflation. That said, the stock market is not the economy. It bodes well for people invested and stockpiling retirement accounts but does nothing for Main Street wage and salary earners.

The lockdowns amounted to the world’s largest and most elaborate economic head-fake in human history. It left the entire world less free and less prosperous, and with drained hopes that restoring normalcy can happen anytime soon. To add injury to the insult, most official institutions are manufacturing fake data to cover it all up.

[…]

Via https://brownstone.org/articles/ten-points-about-post-lockdown-economics/

President Donald Trump has vowed to make the WEF’s CBDC system illegal in America if he wins the election this November.

Sean Adl-Tabatabai

In a new speech at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville Trump made his stance on the WEF’s plans for a centralized digital currency clear: “There will never be a CBDC while I am president.”

Reclaimthenet.org reports: This statement echoes his previous comments on the matter, where he has consistently expressed strong opposition to the idea of a CBDC. He believes that such a currency would give the government too much control over people’s money and could potentially lead to financial tyranny.

Trump’s views on CBDCs seem to be part of a broader narrative that he’s building around protecting individual freedoms and liberties. It’s a message that resonates with many in the cryptocurrency community, who see digital currencies as a way to decentralize power and reduce government control.

Trump has previously called CBDCs a “dangerous threat to freedom.”

Trump’s firm stance underscores the escalating discussions surrounding CBDCs, a significant matter among global governmental bodies. To date, only a few countries have officially adopted such currencies. However, the digital currency landscape continues to evolve, with China advancing the implementation of its digital yuan, India progressing towards a digital rupee, and the European Central Bank initiating a preparatory phase for a potential digital euro.

CBDCs represent a significant evolution in the architecture of money. These digital forms of fiat currency, issued and regulated by a country’s central bank, promise enhanced efficiency in transactions and greater financial inclusion. However, they also pose potential risks to civil liberties that merit careful consideration. Here are some of the primary concerns:

1. Privacy

CBDCs could fundamentally alter the landscape of financial privacy. Traditional cash transactions allow for anonymity. With CBDCs, even small transactions might be traceable and recordable by the central bank. This could lead to a scenario where governments have access to detailed records of every individual’s financial life, raising significant privacy concerns unless robust safeguards are implemented.

2. Surveillance

The transition to a fully digital currency could potentially give governments unprecedented capabilities to monitor and surveil citizen behaviors. In regimes with weaker protections for civil liberties, this could be exploited to track political dissent or suppress opposition. The potential for surveillance not only impacts privacy but also freedom of expression and association.

3. Financial Censorship

With the centralization of currency issuance and transaction management, a CBDC could make it easier for governments to implement financial sanctions against individuals or groups without due process. Accounts could be frozen or transactions blocked more efficiently, which could be used as a tool for political repression or social control.

4. Exclusion

Despite the potential for greater financial inclusion, the reliance on digital infrastructure might marginalize those without access to technology or reliable internet, such as rural populations or the economically disadvantaged. This could exacerbate existing inequalities and restrict access to essential services for those on the fringes of the digital economy.

5. Cybersecurity Risks

The concentration of financial data in a central digital system increases the risk of systemic failures due to cyberattacks. A successful attack could compromise the integrity of a nation’s entire financial system. Moreover, the implications of such attacks extend beyond economic damage to potentially crippling impacts on individual financial security and privacy.

6. Centralization of Power

CBDCs concentrate monetary control significantly. This centralization of financial power could reduce the checks and balances provided by a more distributed banking system, increasing the potential for abuse by those in power, particularly in undemocratic regimes.

7. Legal and Ethical Implications

The implementation of CBDCs raises several legal and ethical questions, including the scope of government intervention in personal finances, the rights of individuals under a digital currency system, and the balance between national security and personal freedoms.

[…]

Via https://thepeoplesvoice.tv/trump-vows-to-ban-wef-rollout-of-cbdcs-they-are-a-threat-to-our-liberty/

Fluoride Free New Zealand

[…]

Via https://fluoridefree.org.nz/absurdities-of-fluoridation/

The main concern should be that this deal further locks Australia into US exceptionalism and attempted hegemony in our region. The Albanese government has repeatedly sought to reassure that our sovereignty has been preserved, but this is very difficult to accept given the extent to which our funding underwrites the US submarine-production program. Moreover, it’s likely Australia’s learning and launch activities will further integrate this country into the operational aspects of the American war machine, such that US leaders may effectively give all the instructions in terms of deployment and other activities.

John Hewson

Some news this month might have given the government pause. Canada – with the longest coastline in the world and a security situation in its Arctic and north changing significantly as the region becomes more accessible, particularly with more Russian and Chinese activity – decided not to join the AUKUS arrangement and buy nuclear submarines. Instead it is considering cooperating with Germany and Norway as partners in a submarine program and will purchase 12 conventionally powered under-ice capable submarines for about $60 billion.

Compare this with the eye-watering cost of Australia’s acquisition: $368 billion for eight Virginia-class and next-generation SSN-AUKUS nuclear submarines with a vague delivery schedule.

Of course, defenders of the AUKUS deal will argue it is more than just an arrangement to buy submarines. They will claim it instead to be a broad, trilateral security arrangement for the Indo-Pacific region that also fosters technology exchanges between the three countries, and helps to build a conventionally armed nuclear-powered submarine force for Australia.

Nevertheless, the deal has been widely criticised and, given its huge cost, it’s worth asking why these criticisms haven’t resonated. One of its most vocal and effective opponents has been former prime minister Paul Keating, who has labelled it “the worst deal in history” and “the worst international decision by a Labor government since the former Labor leader Billy Hughes sought to introduce conscription”. He has slammed the deal particularly for allowing defence interests to trump diplomacy.

It has also been strongly criticised within the Labor Party and union structures: by some 50 units of the party from branches and electoral conferences, and leading unions including the Electrical Trades Union, the CFMEU and the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union. The Nobel Prize-winning, Australian-led International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons has also rejected it for the risks of nuclear proliferation. China’s reaction to the deal was to warn that we are “on a path of error and danger”.“The main concern should be that this deal further locks Australia into US exceptionalism and attempted hegemony in our region … Moreover, it’s likely Australia’s learning and launch activities will further integrate this country into … the American war machine…”

There has also been a host of technical concerns, including in relation to the supply of fuel to run the subs. Keating has drawn a comparison with an alternative deal proposed by the French that emerged after the Morrison government rescinded the original agreement to replace Australia’s ageing Collins-class fleet with the so-called Attack-class sub. This proposal, he says, came with a firm delivery date in 2034 at fixed prices, but was ignored by the government. Technically these French subs would have required only 5 per cent enriched uranium, instead of 95 per cent, weapons grade, for fuel. That this feature was ignored by the government should come as no surprise, as the Coalition has provided no detail about the enriched uranium fuel – neither supply nor cost – for its announced seven nuclear power plants.

However, the main concern should be that this deal further locks Australia into US exceptionalism and attempted hegemony in our region. The Albanese government has repeatedly sought to reassure that our sovereignty has been preserved, but this is very difficult to accept given the extent to which our funding underwrites the US submarine-production program. Moreover, it’s likely Australia’s learning and launch activities will further integrate this country into the operational aspects of the American war machine, such that US leaders may effectively give all the instructions in terms of deployment and other activities.

This should be an even greater concern having heard the Republican candidates for this year’s election speak at their national convention in Wisconsin. Both Donald Trump and J.D. Vance are committed to an even tougher line against China and Australia risks being used somewhat as a pawn in their response to what they like to refer to as the “China threat”. On the contrary, as I have suggested many times, the threat is not so much from the rise of China as it is related to the decline in the global standing of the US. It’s easy to imagine how Trump and Vance could only make this worse, especially by threatening tariffs on Chinese goods.

The Trump–Vance commitment to return to tariff protections flies in the face of voluminous accumulated evidence concerning the costs and disadvantages of doing so. This will certainly not restore the rust-belt states to their former glory as these candidates are promising. China’s only “sin” has been to grow its economy to rival that of the US. The US has lost any cost advantage it may once have enjoyed in manufacturing as well as its edge in technology – most recently in the production of electric vehicles. Just ask Tesla, which now bases much of its production  in China.

And the halcyon days of inflation control in the ’90s were much more the result of China flooding the world with cheap manufactured goods, than any effective application of monetary policy. The US was a major beneficiary of this, which is so easily overlooked in its current cost-of-living crisis.

Surely Australia wouldn’t want to end up being pressured to park nuclear submarines along the Chinese coast as part of a US demonstration of strength? Nor should we allow ourselves to be dragged by the US into some conflict with China over Taiwan.

The Albanese government has had considerable difficulty justifying the cost of the AUKUS deal, and so it should. Governing is about priorities and, true enough, national security is a priority. It’s also true that the government has been able to deal effectively with many domestic priorities, such as providing non-inflationary cost-of-living assistance. Defence procurement has long been somewhat ring-fenced from the normal discipline applied to other departments in the Expenditure Review Committee processes, however. It’s no defence to spend so much on submarines, when so much more could have been done in other national priority areas, including education and the care sectors. This is especially so in light of the attendant risks of a deal such as AUKUS.

With the mounting tension between the US and China, world leaders should be increasingly concerned about the threat of another drift to a Cold War situation.

The need for a circuit breaker is clear. I was pleased recently to join the signatories to an open letter drafted by two former foreign affairs ministers, Gareth Evans and Bob Carr, for détente: “a genuine balance of power between the US and China, designed to avert the horror of great power conflict and to secure a lasting peace for our people, our region, and the world.”

Given the state of the world, and its pronounced geopolitical uncertainty, it is disappointing that neither the US nor China has yet responded to the proposal, and surprising that the Albanese government hasn’t embraced it as a mechanism to advance the point that Australia, as a middle-ranking power, has and can continue to punch above its weight in the global interest.

This is especially so given the benefits that Australia as a nation has reaped from the economic rise of China.

Surely a situation can’t be allowed to develop whereby the United States and China embark on trade protection and military conflict.

At the very least, there should be the imperative of a global discourse on this. Unfortunately, attitudes are hardening in Europe and the US – perhaps to the point where the outcome will be gratuitous harm?

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on July 27, 2024 as “Canada’s smart lead on nuclear subs”.

[…]

https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/comment/topic/2024/07/27/canada-rejects-aukus-nuclear-submarine-deal

REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights

By Tom Polansek and Leah Douglas

CHICAGO, July 23 (Reuters) – Colorado began requiring dairies to test milk supplies for bird flu every week, the state’s veterinarian told Reuters on Tuesday, as a federal team arrived to help investigate an escalating outbreak in cows that has spread to chickens and people.

The state’s new mandate aims to identify additional farms that could be infected and spread the disease to other dairies or poultry flocks, after the largest cluster of human cases to date in the United States occurred on a Colorado farm this month.

Bird flu infections linked to dairy cows have wiped out 3.1 million egg-laying chickens in Colorado in recent weeks, and poultry workers also tested positive.

In Colorado, the loss of millions of chickens triggered the requirement for licensed dairies with lactating cows to test bulk milk supplies weekly, state veterinarian Maggie Baldwin said in an interview. About 70% of the state’s laying hens were eliminated, according to U.S. data.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture since late April has required testing for lactating cows that are being shipped over state lines. The agency later launched a voluntary program to test bulk milk supplies.

A USDA epidemiological “strike team” arrived in Colorado this week to assess how the virus may be spreading among dairies there, Baldwin said. Workers or vehicles can carry the virus from farms.

Six Colorado farm workers tested positive for bird flu in July after culling chickens at an infected egg farm, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

[…]

Via https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/colorado-ramps-up-bird-flu-response-requires-milk-testing-2024-07-23/

Episode 4 The Rise of Chinggis Khan

The Mongol Empire

Dr Craig Benjamin (2020)

Film Review

This lecture is mainly based on the 1228 book Secret History of the Mongols, the earliest know document written in Mongolian. The grandson of Chinggis Khan Kublai Khan, who became the the first Yuan Dynasty emperor after conquering the southern Song Dynasty, revised the Secret History prior to translating it into Chinese.

According to Benjamin, Temujin was the son of Yesugei, leader of the Borjigin clan, and Hoelun of the Olkhonus. Yesugei had just secured a wife (Borte) for 9-year-old Temujin when he was poisoned by Tatar enemies. Subsequently Temujin, Hoelun, along with Yesugei’s second wife and six children siblings were expelled from their family clan, leaving his mother to support the family of nine with her basic hunting, fishing and foraging skills.

At 17 Temujin was arrested after killing his half-brother for stealing a fish and lived in a head-cage briefly before a sympathetic tribesman helped him escape. Shortly after his marriage to Borte, a member of the Merkit tribe kidnapped her. Temujin formed his first major alliance with Ong of the  Kereyids clan, who provided 20,000 warriors to help him free his wife. Ong, in turn, persuaded Temjuin’s boyhood friend Jamukha to provide an additional 20,000 warriors.

Following his reunion with Borte, Temujin spent time with Jamukha to acquire horse riding and weapon skills he missed out following his father’s death. The two eventually fell out over Temujin’s growing popularity with the Mongol aristocracy. Following a decisive defeat by Jamukha at the Battle Dalanbaljut, Temujin lost most of his army and disappeared into the Jin Dynasty (northern China) for ten years.

By the time he returned to Mongolia in 1195, Jamukha was extremely unpopular, and many of the clans supporting him switched their allegiance to Temujin. With the support of the Jin Dynasty, he joined forces with the Toghrul (khan of the Kareites) to defeat both the Tartars and the Jurchens.

In 1201 the Mongol elite called a Karutai (genera assembly of clan leaders) and skeptical of Temujin’s willingness to promote commoners to high rank, they elected Jamukha Great Khan. In response, Temujin and the Toghrul went to war against Jamukha.

By 1202 the Tatars had been destroyed as a fighting force and Mongolia was divided into three political region with the Naimans in control of western Mongolia, Jamukha in charge of Kereit in central Mongolia and Temujin in change of eastern Mongolia. He ultimately defeated Jamukha and the Kereites in 1204.

In 1206 a new Karutai appointed Temujin Great Khan.

Film can be viewed with a library card on Kanopy.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/12373094/12373102

Zero Hedge

The U.S. Navy has agreed to correct the records of SEALs and sailors who declined to receive COVID-19 vaccines due to their religious beliefs, under a settlement approved by a federal court on July 24.

“Defendants agree to re-review the personnel records of all class members to ensure that the U.S. Navy has permanently removed records indicating administrative separation processing or proceedings, formal counseling, and non-judicial punishment actions taken against the class members solely on the basis of non-compliance with the COVID-19 vaccine mandate and adverse information related to non-compliance with the COVID-19 vaccine mandate,” the settlement agreement states.

The review must be finished within nine months, according to the agreement.

The Navy has also agreed to review the records of class members discharged over refusal to receive a COVID-19 shot. Officials “will remove any indication from that service member’s records that he or she was discharged for misconduct” and make sure the discharged members are listed as eligible for enlistment.

The expungement of records must be completed within one year according to the agreement.

All Navy members who filed a religious request for an exemption from the Navy’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate and were actively serving as of March 28, 2022, are covered by the settlement. That includes people who rescinded their accommodation requests in order to leave the military.

Some 4,339 individuals are affected by the settlement, according to court documents.

“This has been a long and difficult journey, but the Navy SEALs never gave up,” Danielle Runyan, senior counsel at the First Liberty Institute, said in a statement.

“We are thrilled that those members of the Navy who were guided by their conscience and steadfast in their faith will not be penalized in their Navy careers.”

The Navy declined to comment on the settlement.

The lawsuit, filed in 2021 by the institute on behalf of Navy personnel, prompted the court system in 2022 to block the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for members seeking religious accommodation. In 2023, the Department of Defense rescinded the mandate for all military branches, including the Navy, per a bill approved by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden.

The settlement features the Navy committing to posting a statement on its website saying in part that the branch “supports diverse expressive activities, to include religious expression, and recognizes that through inclusion we are a better military and stronger nation for it.” The statement will say accommodating religious beliefs is “a pillar of the Navy’s commitment to treating all sailors with dignity and respect.”

The Navy has also agreed to list information advising members of their rights to request religious accommodations, create a training presentation for Navy supervisors and commanders, and pay $1.5 million in attorneys’ fees.

Individuals who believe they are part of the class to which the agreement applies can visit First Liberty Institute’s website for the settlement.

More than 16,000 military members filed religious accommodation requests as of January 2023. Many of the requests were denied. If members received a denial but still refused to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, they were often booted from the force. Branches discharged 7,705 members for not complying with the COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The Navy discharged 1,566 members.

When the Navy discharged members, it gave them reentry codes that made them ineligible for reenlistment.

The Army and Air Force violated their own rules in handling exemption requests in a timely manner, the Pentagon’s inspector general said earlier this year, while the Marines and Navy generally met their timeline requirements.

The Navy, though, was among the branches that the watchdog found used incorrect codes for members who were granted exemptions. Officials attributed the incorrect codes to clerical errors.

[…]

Via https://www.zerohedge.com/political/navy-expunge-records-seals-sailors-who-refused-covid-vaccines