Eugenics
Righty: Don’t get me wrong: I don’t think we should be playing God with our fellow humans. I’m against the whole notion of “designer babies” who are pre-programmed for perfect WASP looks, Jewish brains and black athletic ability. But we have to do something about the tendency of our least fit citizens to produce the most children. The situation is entirely out of control, and it doesn’t bode well for our future. If it were up to me, I’d sterilize welfare mothers after the first two kids. (Why should the rest of us have to foot the bill for her multitudinous offspring, and her offsprings’ offspring, and so on down the line?) I’d also sterilize violent criminals and impose immigration standards that make it impossible for chronic welfare types (e.g., illiterates, retards, drug-dealers and people who refuse to learn English) to enter our country and procreate like horny fruitflies. It’s about time we realized that a nation can be only as sound as its populace… and our populace isn’t looking too sound lately.
Lefty: Have you been sitting in on lectures by Dr. Mengele, Righty? Your blatant contempt for the rights of your countrymen never ceases to amaze and appall me. You’re supposed to be the patriot here. Haven’t you read your own Declaration of Independence? “All men are created equal,” remember? How can you even think about depriving some people of their natural right to bear children? Based on whose standards? Yours? Why not mine? (Hell, I might ban Republicans and Evangelical Christians from reproducing!) Your proposal is the worst sort of misanthropic and racist garbage, and it reeks dangerously of fascism.
The New Moderate:
Yes, it sounds inhumane and even fascistic to declare that some people’s genes are unworthy of replicating. At the same time, I can understand Righty’s alarm over the unfettered fertility of our lowest socioeconomic sector. What happens to our country, ultimately, if welfare mothers produce five or six children for every kid lovingly overindulged by yuppie parents? And if those welfare kids become grandparents by the age of thirty, how will a dwindling middle class subsidize all that unskilled progeny?
Sterilize them? Of course not. But let’s not make it so easy for the underclass to demonstrate its fecundity without restraint or consequences. Poor people need to be sold on the concept of contraception and reproductive responsibility. They need to be sold hard.
This isn’t eugenics or even racism; it’s simple common sense. The New Moderate isn’t advocating designer babies for the rich or forced sterilization for the poor. No sane person wants a society that puts its citizens through the genetic equivalent of SATs to determine who’s fit enough to reproduce. As Lefty argued, whose standards do we honor?
The forces of natural selection seem to value sturdy nerves over brilliant minds, anyway. Rambunctious illiterates have always reproduced more lustily than philosophy professors. So do we just let nature take its course while we force ourselves to nod approvingly at the results?
Probably. But we also need to make sure we don’t tip the scales in favor of the illiterates by subsidizing their reproductive hijinks. The fact that we oppose eugenics shouldn’t signal our tacit approval of dysgenics. We need to work seriously at breaking the chain that turns unschooled youngsters with no prospects into thirty-year-old grandparents with no prospects.
Summary: Just as no humane society would sterilize its least capable citizens, neither should it subsidize their reproductive efforts. We shouldn’t tip the genetic scales in favor of the rich or the poor.
THE NEW MODERATE 
You got this one wrong on the left right debate. It was the progressives that were the biggest supporters of eugenics although some conservatives did support it too, it was still primarily a progressive idea.
You mean modern progressives (i.e., liberals), or early 20th century progressives like Teddy Roosevelt? There’s a big difference. TR, for all his virtues, was something of a racialist; I could see him advocating controls over unfettered reproduction by non-WASPs.
20th Century Progressives were very big into it, although I still suspect there is still a bit of it left, abortion and Planned Parenthood and all that. I can’t say I know any conservatives today that agree with eugenics, even in the slightest. I just think you are a little off base with this one. There is a difference between saying people who cannot take care of their kids shouldn’t have them and a eugenics program. One is about trying to get people to be responsible and the other is a very, very bad thing.
Maybe I was using the right as a convenient mouthpiece for the Nazi-style obsession with eugenics (though on a more humane level). You’re probably right that most modern American conservatives wouldn’t go that far.
Reproductive responsibility is the essence of my New Moderate viewpoint; I was looking for the happy medium between government-imposed controls and unlimited reproduction by the poor.
The thing is other than the nationalism involved in Fascism it really an offshoot of Socialism. Mussolini being one of Italy’s most prominent socialist until his break with them over WWI. Since socialism at the time was considered an international ideology nationalism was not seen as a good thing, Mussolini however was a nationalist and disagreed with them on this point and supported WWI were many of the socialists at the time did not as it was a purely nationalistic war and in their opinion counter productive and wrong (something I would have to agree with them on). Hilter as well was deeply into socialist and progressive ideology however he was also into racism (something not always considered a bad thing in some progressive theory) and nationalism, so he mixed all of them into his National Socialist party. Fascism was an idology built off many of the ideas of Socialism and Progressive ideals. It ended up being what Mussolini called a “Third Way” and was more of a mixture of Socialism and Corporatism leaning heavy on the Socialism side. Neither Mussolini or Hitler like Capitalism however in Hitler’s case he traded Class Warfare for racial warfare mixed with some class warfare. Mussolini stuck with the Class Warfare but confined it only to Italy and didn’t bother with the international theories.
In Europe any “nationalist” party is considered right wing even if their social and economic policies are very close to what would be called left wing or progressive. Such as the BNP in the UK. Were in America right wing while also looked on as nationalistic, the economic and to a point social policies are more closely aligned with Traditional Liberalism something that could be either nationalistic or international in focus and often times both to a point.
Corporatism is not just a problem for the left but also increasingly on the right however the reasons behind it do differ, and Corporatism in any form is against the ideals of Traditional Liberalism. It is also something I feel strongly against.
I would read this for a better understanding:
I do completely agree with you on reproductive responsibility. However I cannot in good conscience allow the Government to take control over it. We need to get the country to basically “grow up” and learn how to be responsible for their own actions and get the government out of running peoples lives. I don’t think there can be a medium between control and total lack of control. Any time the government gets their hands even a little into anything they will continue to want more and more, and politicians cannot be trusted because all they want to do is bribe people for votes for more power. I think the real issue is not a government control verse total freedom thing, that is only a symptom of the real problem and that is how do you change the culture so that people are forced or even want to take responsibility for their own lives.
Obsession with perfection is not to be confused with the noble pursuit of self-betterment. When youi tamper with that which is not fully understood, you can foul-up. (sci-fi channel monsters?) Diseases should be cured, but when everybody has the same, ideal genes, and some new plague wipes-out EVERYBODY, because nobody can resist it, we’d get what we deserve for tampering with the “warranty”. The most debilitating and destructive maladies should have treatments or cures found, but beware similarity, because shared weaknesses are the most dangerous.
There should be no welfare money for more than two children in the household. If people can’t take responsibility for their own reproductive lives that’s not society’s problem. If they are poor and have more than two kids, too bad. Let them figure out how to support them. And cut the damned earned income credit. That’s nothing but a crutch.
Eugenics? No…however much I would love to impose it on the terminally STUPID.
Of course Lefty decries eugenics whilst conveniently forgetting legal-for-any-reason abortion could allow eugenics via the back door- we couldn’t possibly bring kids into the world who have the misfortune to be born with Down’s Syndrome, deaf or with low IQ, could we? And if the mother should choose to abort simply because the foetus is of the wrong sex (this actually happened once)? Sure, it’s morally repugnant, but its her body and her choice and therefore none of our damned business, innit?
Eeeerrrrr. “Wellfare mothers” don’t produce kids. Fathers have to participate too.
Testing. Quack quack.
Hi Ducky…
Did you see this?
“Trump Lawyer Broached Idea
of Pardons for
2 Top Ex-Aides
By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT, JO BECKER, MARK MAZZETTI, MAGGIE HABERMAN and ADAM GOLDMAN 6:19 PM ET
President Trump’s lawyer discussed pardons for Michael T. Flynn and Paul Manafort last year as the special counsel was building cases against both men.
The episode raises questions about whether the president’s lawyer was trying to influence the advisers and their cooperation with the special counsel.“ NYTimes
That’s OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE.
And this?
“Trump Aide Spoke in ’16 to Person Tied to Russia Intelligence
By MARK MAZZETTI
The campaign official, Rick Gates, has pleaded guilty in the investigation by the special counsel into Russian election interference.”
That’s evidence of TRUMP CAMPAIGN COLLUSION with Russia.
But on the bright side for TRUMPANZEES, the pro Trump Roseanne show had a large opening night audience.
Hi jay
No I haven’t seen that yet.
I figured someone would find this space, glad it ain’t the pig, so far.
Sorry, it is still too weak to nail Trump.
My hero and my nominee for “Person Of The Year”:
Lt. Col. Arnaud Beltrame
There are a lot of so called “heroes” that were just doing their jobs, this is a real hero who didn’t have to get himself killed, but put his life on the line.
Agree…
If you have a Costco nearby, this is a good deal:
Kirkland Irish Whiskey.
As good as Jameson:
Smells about the same.
Tastes about the same.
After two shots, no difference at all.
Kirkland: $15 less a bottle!
Slurp
They sucked us in again with their twisted logic.
I can’t use Diversity on my phone, so I’m cooling it a bit.
They don’t seem to care about those kids just their f—– guns.
Dave, you say government is the problem. That people have choices. People have recourse. Companies will act responsibly since they face liability suits.
In 2016, the FAA found metal fatigue in a Southwest airlines engine. GE, the partner in the manufacturing of this engine recommended ultrasonic inspection of the engine blades.The FAA proposed in 2017 mandatory inspection of those engines within 18 months, the manufacturer requested 12 months.
Southwest and other airlines objected due to the cost, downtime of planes and other issues. Airlines won, inspections not made.
This week a plane owned by Southwest had an engine blade blow apart, penetrating the fuselage, killing a passenger and partially sucking her out of the plane. One can say the other passengers were lucky.
So is your answer to this issue one of it being fine that airlines are not following recommendations, that government should not require inspection, that airlines paying millions to the two kids and husband of the dead passenger makes growing up without a mom fine and airlines should continue fighting FAA request in the future?
Yes, we all have choices. I dont fly. But for those that do, do they just make sure they sit next to the fat man .
Almosr 2 years ago exactly – and we are still debating the same things.
Yep, your an extreme Libertarian, I view myself a moderate libertarian, somewhat close to Rand Paul.
You have your ideas, I have mine. We are both stubborn old farts that refuse to change.
Moved and make sure you click the notify me box to get e-mails if you want them.
Sharing this should anyone know of someone getting laid off.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/amazon-is-hiring-100000-workers-7-eleven-will-hire-up-to-20000-here-are-the-sectors-adding-jobs-amid-coronavirus-2020-03-20
Places hiring WILL NOT balance those laying off.
But there will be lots of jobs that are created by this.
Dave “I would hope it would be obvious to everyone that the longer we choke the economy, the more we lose economically – and that even will include peoples lives, and the less favorable the tradeoff will look.”
The issue here becomes the value of a life. How much are we willing to help in order to save lives. If we lower the curve and extend this to June, how many lives will not be sacrificed because the health system was able to handle the influx instead of the USA having the same outcomes as italy who did nothing for days after we went to shutdown mode.
Your value of life is far less than mine given your statements that we should do little and let the disease run its course. I am willing to sacrifice now and have government assistance given to those in need to reduce the loss of life. Yes, there will be the very old and very sick before this hits them that will not be able to be saved. They may die 6 months earlier, but I speak of the 60 and 70 year old healthy males that end up in the hospital. I don’t want a hospital chosing between someone at my age and someone 65 to use a respirator on to save their life while sacrificing the older individual who was healthy in all respects until the virus hit.
Advice: try to have a fair amount of cash on hand. When the shit hits the fan, as important as sanitizer and paper towels. And try to fill any open med prescriptions you have now.
Still severe shortages of medical supplies in LA. And my friend’s wife, a nurse at a clinic, says they still haven’t received any test kits.
Tried ordering online food from Costco. A 6-day delivery lag, which likely will be delayed as well, and substitutions offered for many items ordered.
So the credit/debit cards are not working. Hell, I have not had cash on me for so long I cant remember.
Has online pharmacies like Optum stopped fed ex/ UPS/USPS deliveries?
I still can not understand what the hell the feds are doing with the test kit issues. Why are they regulating those, why is there not a concerted effort to produce the supplies needed by the private sector? This will go down as a textbook example of total government failure caused by bureaucratic control.
As for costco and food, maybe we should try the 1970’s fuel shortage distribution system modified slightly. ( last name A-E Monday shopping F-J Tuesday…. Saturday everyone free-for-all day) Sounds like a good govt solution, right😵😵😵😵👍
Credit cards are working – so far.
But better safe than sorry…
If credit and debit cards quit working – then banks have quit working, and you have much more serious problems.
I do not want to attack your advice – for once that is what you are doing – offering advice to individuals, rather than demanding that GOVERNMENT FORCE us to do as you wish.
That said – if you actually beleive things will get so bad that only cash will have value, you are a very small step from so bad that cash will have no value.
It’s as smart to put cash aside for emergencies as to have a well stocked medicine chest. If that’s advice you don’t think is useful don’t heed it.
And what does credit card failure have to do with bank failure? Credit card networks can crash. In 2018 a major widespread outage affected thousands of Visa customers in Europe and the UK: the banks were sound, the credit card equipment wasn’t. Those with cash in their pockets were able to take taxis, buy groceries, sit in air-conditioned movies until the service was restored – opposed to 8 to 10 hours of bitching and moaning from empty pocket Visa cardholders. During a pandemic servers can fail, electricity can go out, and the techs needed to restore service could be severely sidelined by viral infection. It could take a day or two or three to get back on line in some places. Think cash would come in handy then?
Jay,
I can construct a manufactured scenario where there is no electricty for days, a desparate need to make purchases, stores still open, but banks have failed, and yet government is still trusted in which cash still has value.
But I can not construct such a scenario in which I am likely still alive and wish to continue to live.
I have in my wallet credit cards, debit cards, checks. I also have apple pay and alipay and googlepay on my phone, and most of those POS terminals take all of the above. In fact I do not think Uber takes case or checks. And if the internet goes down – your store is not going to be opened.
Further you sayu banks are still functional – then my debit card is going to work, and even if it does not – I can go to the bank – which you told me is still working to get cash THEN, rather than carrying alot arround in my wallet begging to get mugged.
But if you want to buy Meth on the streets – Cash is king.
What was the currency in the world of Mad Max ? Not dollars.
If you want to beleive you should hoard cash – go ahead.
As to you medicine chest – my suggestion is that you find a way to stock up on the things you are supposed to have a perscription for (but don’t).
The odds of CVS ebing unable to provide you with whatever over the counter meds you want are near zero.
Based on recent news – Hydroxychloroquine and Zithromax – that combination CURED Covid19 in CRITICAL patients in 5 days in a very large percent of cases in China.
Viagra is now OTC – and we are all probably spending alot of time at home.
When I am so frail that I must seek AC for an 8-10hr powerfailure – I will make sure than I carry cash.
Though I would note – I have 5 cars in my driveway – and not one of them takes cash,
but every one of them has an AC that will run without electric.
Why are you all fixated on test kits ?
This is very close to a non-issue.
What is going to change if there are more test kits ?
The numbers being reported are NOT people who have tested positive.
They are people who have been exposed.
If you have been exposed you will be expected to self quarantine – whether you test positive or not.
If you are sick – does it matter if you have Covid19 or the flu ?
If you are very sick and must seek medical care – does it matter ?
There are a small number of instances in which testing is valueable.
It does appear that the South Koreans did successfully manage to contain the virus by mass
testing.
But we are likely beyond the point at which that is possible.
We are not going to subject 330M people or ever 33M people to manditory testing.
PLEASE!!!! DO NOT REPEAT THE STUPID RATIONING AND PRICE CONTROLS NIXON DID IN THE 70’s.
These are an incredibly stupid idea – and do not work.
Various businesses may take a few days or sometimes a week to adapt,
There will also be minor blipps because they do not perfectly anticipate the exact ways in which our behaviour changes in every single city.
But I will guarantee that if you change the way you chose to buy, businesses will change how they sell.
Further there will be no more than temporary shortages of any commodities – ordinary common goods, UNLESS government interferes with their production.
“PLEASE!!!! DO NOT REPEAT THE STUPID RATIONING AND PRICE CONTROLS NIXON DID IN THE 70’s.”
GOTCHA! Missed the satire and all the faces eh?
My mail client does not show emoji’s.
Regardless, I did grasp the satire.
I just chose to respond without sarcasm.
Government dicking with the economy is ALWAYS a bad idea.
Each of us has to make out own choices, and input is welcome.
But I will offer something I learned long ago in architectural school.
Self Sufficient living was huge in the school of architecture, and generally big on campuses.
This was post Nixon odd/even gas rationing, and in the midst of Carter and the oil embargo.
This was the tail end of the nuclear winter, this was post ehrlich’s population bomb.
In accademia where I was trapped education was an intellectual version of survivalist.
We were supposed to design buildings for the apocolypse.
To some extent I bought into this. But i began to take this to its logical conclusions.
There was no way we would rebuild Atlanta where I was in college to be a self sufficient city in a few years. If oil ran out, if the apocolypse came, those few who prepared would not just need passive solar heat, dry toilets, hydroponic gardens, but they would need machine gun turrets to protect themselves and their hydroponic gardens and …..
It is one thing to prepare for periods of brief shortages of essential goods,
But if you really beleive this will be apocalypitc – then you better go 1000 miles out into the woods away from everyone and figure out how to live in a cabin without electric off of things you grow yourself. And you had better bring guns.
I do not beleive there will be an apocolypse – not even a mild one.
But I am not going to fight over that. I am just going to ask that you contemplate what you will REALLY need if things get that bad.
Every recomendation you make all the advise you give is applicable only to some narrow window of outcomes.
You say keep cash arround – that is only useful if our system of government remains intact.
There are plenty of historical examples – mostly war, where societal structures entirely broke down. Cash was useless. things like chocolate bars and cigarettes became money.
Dave, I have began to create my apocalypse list. Not finushed yet.
1. Waterproof safe. Once thec stock market recovers,will cash out, place funds in safe, place in cement lines whole in back yard, buried, but accessible with sod over a removable cover.
2. At least 1 year supply if toilet tissue., Maybe 2.
3. 200 bottles.of white zinfandel wine, or 150 boxes. Not sure yet since boxes store easier
4. 65 cases of Coors beer, regular, not fake “lite beer” .
5. 200 lbs of sharp cheddar cheese
6. 100 bars of soap
Thats the start. Beginning with staying clean and drunk! Will finish list later.
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂!!!!!
1. Waterproof safe.
Not good enough – weld the safe shut and encase it in atleast 2ft of concrete – your money will be safe then.
2. At least 1 year supply if toilet tissue., Maybe 2.
I though you said you were in your 60’s – then you need a 25 year supply.
3. 200 bottles.of white zinfandel wine, or 150 boxes. Not sure yet since boxes store easier
My father went through 2 bottles of VO a week after my mother died – you need ALOT more wine than that. Regardless, go for the hard stuff, it takes less by volume to maintain the buzz.
4. 65 cases of Coors beer, regular, not fake “lite beer” .
Not efficient enough – go for scotch. Or just buy straight ethanol.
5. 200 lbs of sharp cheddar cheese
Brie, Goda, Tripple Cream.
6. 100 bars of soap
Who is planing to shower ?
Everyone else will be dead so who are you showering for ?
You cant see them but many LMAO emojis .
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
I am watching a video blogger from LA.
He is going into stores every morning and evening.
The hordes descend and the store shelves are cleared.
And the next day, or maybe the one after – they are refilled.
Things like toilet paper go first,
But they keep coming back.
There will be short term issues – especically in big cities where panic demand is highest,
But there are no permanent supply problems.
The only things that you are at actual risk of running out of long term are those things produced by businesses that government has shutdown.
Shortages of simple medical supplies – masks, gloves, etc. will correct themselves quickly,
There might be temporary shortages on bad days, but products that require little capital and can be produced quickly will not experience more than short term shortages.
If those goods are made in china – the chinese will either deliver, or very quickly we will produce them ourselves or get them somewhere else.
More complex parts – things that are more capital intensive that spike in demand will take longer to overcome shortages. But they will.
I know this is foreign to you. But this is precisely what free markets are best at – allocating during shortages, and aleviating shortages.
No scheme in existance anywhere ever is better at this that free markets.
What you will see the worst shortages of will be those things government is most deeply entrenched in.
We are seeing that now. There are already almost a dozen vaccines that are ready to be tested. Many of these will fail – either they will not work or they will not be safe, but every week there will be more new possibilities than were rejected previously.
The time to widespread vaccine use is purely how quickly can government allow testing to move forward and what are the acceptable levels of risk government will tolerate.
The H1N1 vaccine arrived in about 8 months. It was given to millions of people and 500 experienced paralysis as a side effect. The FDA considers that a failure and has increased the testing requirements to prevent a repeat.
Yet the H1N1 vaccine likely prevented 10million additional cases and 2-3000 deaths.
This is what FDA considers a failure.
I fully expect Vaccine approval and testing to come to a head fairly shortly .
Again you will see an assortment of short term disruptions as Amazon scales up, as Costco and Target and Walmart shift their business processes.
Some of that is because they have to get a sense from YOU as to how your behaviour changes.
They RESPOND to your wants and needs.
If YOU decide that YOU want to buy online, they will adapt as quickly as they can.
One thing that everyone should be noting is how rapidly those evil greedy capitalists figure out how to adapt to YOUR changing wants and needs. ‘
There will be examples of people behaving badly – like possibly some of our senators and representatives.
I personally do not give a crap out of “gougers” or more accurately speculators.
There is no model of the actual effects of their conduct that is actually economically negative.
There is an excellent chapter on the real economics of horders, gougers, and speculators in
Click to access Defending_the_Undefendable_2018.pdf
But if you do not want to read Block’s anarcho-capitalist defense of lots of things that most of us wrongly consider reprehensible.
There is actually plenty of economic data and studies. The impact of speculating at times of potential shortages is net strongly positive.
Right now the problem with mail order is the lack of personnel working in warehouses and delivery. Walmart, Target, Amazon have huge needs right now and an extensive labor pool that has been laid off. This issue is temporary because Amazon will address the needs at a local area, ie CA needing thousands. It is not like the government that addresses all issues from D.C.
I say temporary unless Newsom does some control from Sacremento.
The long term danger is a drop in DEMAND.
Especially if sustained that will have severe impacts.
The worst outcome of this is that amazon and walmart and target and …. are NOT busy.
The NEXT biggest problem is interferance by government in PRODUCTION.
There is already too much of that.
There is a huge difference between – figure out how to reduce work related risks and stop work.
Demand spikes, shortages, speculation are NON-PROBLEMS, they will go away, probably quickly – unless government spikes supply.
Food prices RISING.
Salt & honey shortages in local stores (on Amazon sea salt just doubled).
& Kaiser taking order but not confirming price or delivery dates for on-line ordered meds.
Again – outside of brief disruptions from panic buying, the only prices that will significantly rise long term, are those for goods where there is a fundimental basis for shortage.
Is there some special reason that we will need more salt that normal through this ?
Is there some reason we will not be able to produce as much salt as before ?
If one of these things are not true – prices will not rise.
It is more likely that prices may fall – as demand drops.
Huh?
Of course price gouging will subside after the crisis causing it diminishes.
But people are getting gouged now.
Should we tell them, don’t worry, long term like the virus it will magically go poof, when warm summer weather disperses it?
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/coronavirus-price-gouging-stores-us-5000-cases
“Of course price gouging will subside after the crisis causing it diminishes.
But people are getting gouged now.
Should we tell them, don’t worry, long term like the virus it will magically go poof, when warm summer weather disperses it?”
The only thing that “gougers” do is smooth the supply curve. That is it.
They drive prices up when demand is rising BEFORE actual need spikes, and they carry supply into the future when demand is high but supply is not.
And if those conditions are not all met – the speculator gets wiped out.
I linked the Walter Block book – he has a whole chapter on this.
But you are likely to find Block too extreme for you. On some things he is too extreme for me.
But what he says on price speculation, hording and gouging is absolutely borne out by real world data.
First the laws of supply and demand are immutable – if a speculator drives a price up today, they automatically are driving it down later.
The vast majority of the time speculators LOSE. Look at the JP Morgan “whale”,
He used the vast resources of JP Morgan to attempt to corner the market and drive prices up. He got obliterated to the tune of 8B in losses for JP Morgan.
If you want to buy 17,000 bottles of hand sanitizer in the hope of selling it in the future on ebay or Amazon for a higher price – go for it.
You can only succeed if the future demand is high enough to justify the price you are demanding. That means you have moved supply from a period of relative surplus to a period of relative shortage – decreasing both the surplus and shortage.
You have not even changed the price overall. You might raise the price slightly on the front end but you lower it on the back end.
And all that presumes you guess right.
If as an example a spike in the demand for hand sanitizer is followed quickly by a spike in supply – you are going to lose lots of money.
Interesting. Nanny state without price gouging laws. Never would e have thought that in CA.
NC law basically defines price gouging as charging “a price that is unreasonably excessive under the circumstances.” There is no set price or percentage increase defined in the law so the law can apply to different products and services in times of crisis. ”
The price of anything, anywhere at any time is the price a free buyer and a free sellor agree to.
Price gouging is a fake construct.
If you do not like the price – do not pay it.
If others feel the same – they will not either and the price will drop.
Every sellor always seeks to be in the position that the whole world wants what they have, that it is in short supply and that they are not under pressure to sell.
Every buyer wants to be in the postion where the sellor badly needs to sell, and the buyer does nor need to buy.
Sometimes we get what we want there. That is not a crime.
I have bought things at fire sales and auctions – is that some form of buyer price gouging ?
There is nothing morally wrong with paying the least price you can, and there is nothing morally wrong with getting the highest price you can.
Neither Pence nor the govermnemt will provide you with test kits, surgical masks, or pretty much anything.
You will receive what you want and need because free markets will provide it.
Further you are AGAIN misrepresenting what was claimed.
The initial claim was a shortage of “test kits” – millions of test kits were delivered.
PROMISE KEPT
Actual testing is independent of “test kits”.
There are two separate problems with testing – the first was Government would not allow state or independent labs to do testing.
Now they will.
We now have localized problems because in some regions testing labs can not do the number of tests demanded,
We also have problems because testing is being triaged. Those tests that are an actual priority, that will affted important decisions are being performed first.
If you are symptom free, but possibly exposed and self quarantined – your test is not a priority.
As to Biden – there is no measure by which Biden/Obama did not do far worse in 2009.
There is also building evidence that many of the problems that CDC/FDA currently have – such as the longer approval times for vaccines are the consequence of Obama/Biden’s actions.
As to Biden’s specific statements – Would Biden send troops to China to get US experts into China ? IF not, he is blowing smoke. Do you really beleive Joe “My son made billions from China” Biden is going to hold the chinese feet to the fire more than Trump ?
Frankly you on the left make zero sense.
Trump is a racist for closing the border so soon, now he is a racist for not closing it soon enough. He is a racist for being angry with China for their failures, and at the same time he should force them – using what wet noodles ? FORCE ULTIMATE MEANS GUNS – do not forget that when you threaten force.
There is lots of political gamesmenship here – that is natural.
Trump is making political hay – aparetnly his approval rate is actually rising.
Democrats are free to seek their own political advantage.
But lets try to keep the level of STUPID down.
Has Trump screwed somethings up ? Absolutely.
Would Biden have done as well ? Not a chance in hell.
Biden has for the most part been MIA on this.
“And wasn’t that the same time he said the United States is No. 1 in the world in terms of the country’s preparedness for a pandemic?”
So who has done better – italy ? Iran ? Switzerland ? Germany ?
“I’m not suggesting the Trump team isn’t worried now, and trying to react as best it can now – but a dozen clowns crammed into a Volkswagen disguised as an ambulance isn’t a reassuring joke…”
Aside from Trump, Pence and Azzar, pretty much everyone involved is the same people who would have been involved had Clinton been elected.
I think we are making enormous mistakes. I think we are overly fixated on protecting the healthcare system and insufficiently fixated on protecting the economy.
A lower standard of living means more people die – no matter what happens in healthcare.
“ You will receive what you want and need because free markets will provide it.”
So the government was wrong shipping these military supplies to US hospitals… those patients needed to wait for the free market to provide them… your perspicacity continues to amaze!
https://www.defense.gov/Explore/News/Article/Article/2115200/dod-poised-to-provide-masks-ventilators-labs-for-coronavirus-fight/
“So the government was wrong shipping these military supplies to US hospitals… those patients needed to wait for the free market to provide them… your perspicacity continues to amaze!”
I have never in my entire life seen the military make anything.
They do not make masks, gloves, they do not make bullets, guns tanks.
Everything in the possesssion of the military was made privately.
Further aside from temporarily aleviating some shortages by transfering some stockpiled goods, these actions have minimal impact.
When the hospitals use up those stockpiles from the military – where will they get more ?
Government PRODUCES NOTHING.
The free market or when you have your way – the less free market produces everything.
Which do you think we can last longer without – the military, or private enterprise ?
How long will you last without groceries, fuel, ….
How long will the military last ?
Your inability to see beyond the most surface layer of anything amazes me.
When you elect Clowns, expert a Circus:
VP Pence just said millions of surgical masks will be available “in a matter of weeks.” On March 3rd weren’t we promised 4-million tests would be soon be performed? Have even 200,000 been performed yet? And Pence said he and his wife would be tested today – after one of his staff was reported as testing positive. Bet that time frame will be met with alacrity.
Biden 2/26/20: “ If I were president today, I would not be taking China’s word when it comes to the coronavirus. American scientists and health experts should be allowed in the country to determine how the virus started and to help contain its spread.:
Trump 2/26/20: Announces Pence will be heading the coronavirus fight. “ “Mike will be working with the professionals, the doctors and everybody else that’s working,” Trump said. “The team is brilliant.” And wasn’t that the same time he said the United States is No. 1 in the world in terms of the country’s preparedness for a pandemic?
I’m not suggesting the Trump team isn’t worried now, and trying to react as best it can now – but a dozen clowns crammed into a Volkswagen disguised as an ambulance isn’t a reassuring joke…
yep, clowns to the right of us, clowns to the left. Makes ya feel all warm and fuzzy right?
https://nationalfile.com/flashback-biden-opposed-trumps-chinese-coronavirus-travel-ban-as-xenophobia/
Ron – shame on Biden for criticizing the Chinese ban!
Except he didn’t. That article is deceptive, phony.
Notice: the quoted Biden campaign remark doesn’t mention the ban, but refers to Trump’s xenophobic attitude/behavior toward China and Chinese people.
The Right-Red Media is in full deceptive Biden Mode, quoting him out of context. They took this Thursday Biden tweet to insinuate he’s completely against the travel ban:
“A wall will not stop the coronavirus. Banning all travel from Europe — or any other part of the world — will not stop it. This disease could impact every nation and any person on the planet — and we need a plan to combat it.”
Sound’s like Biden is mimicking Dave there.
But if you’re comfortable trusting Trump’s judgement and instincts for crafting a plan to combat Covid-19, i defer to your right to be wrong…
Jay, this is exactly what is wrong in America today. The right cant see one thing Trump does bad and the left cant see one thing their politicians do wrong. Nothing Biden said was bad. O.K., You believe that.
Its just like the “Trump ignores Chinese Virus” articles being written. The right is defending every action he has taken. The left has attacked every action until just the last couple of days.
And the media has such tunnel vision pro/con Trump they are ignoring problems. Had it not been for the fiasco taking place in congress from late december to early February, do you think maybe a handful if reporters would have looked at data coming out of China.There were a few, but not enough prominent ones writing. If they looked and began writing articles, would congressional members focused on that? Could political pressures changed any decision earlier? Would Trump ignored it like he is accused of had he not been focused on impeachment? If questions were asked at his mini press conferences and they continued, could that have changed his focus?
I believe that one Queen Nancy brain fart changed the political and environmental landscape that has led to some of our issues today. Political division has resulted in the media losing focus. According to reports, Trump dismissed info given to him by the contagion team. Would that been different had he read continuing stories?
Who knows, but from my perspective the democrats screwed up focusing all of Americas attention for more than a month on impeachment, Trump screwed up ignoring advisors because he was focused on defending himself from impeachment and the media screwed up because they were either defending or attacking impeachment and not doing investigative reporting on the Chinese virus.
I think the best short term solution is Biden defeats Trump. Biden settles into the White House and becomes reclusive, only his press secretary is heard from. We see him at SOTU and occasionally meeting with someone. Trump waves are gone forever. No more daily twits. Pelosi, Shumer sets agenda behind closed doors and we know little until the house passed gill hit the senate. And by the way, Shumer goes full nuclear, relegating republicans to spectators. MSNBC almost goes bankrupt since there is so much good coming from theirvside.
The return to long term govt regulation, open borders and free unfair trade with China scares me for my kids future, but they can fix that in 4 years.
No, Ron, I don’t think Biden does no wrong; but I KNOW he doesn’t do, hasn’t done, won’t do anywhere near as wrong as Trump has done, and will continue to do if elected to a second term. If you don’t see it that way as I do, we are living is separate perception universes.
If Biden’s elected there won’t be open borders; I’m make sure of that (the MAJORITY of Dems & Independents don’t want open borders. Neither does Biden. Neither does Pelosi. Neither does Schumer, neither do African or Asian or Jewish Dems want that) and those voices will prevail. Yes, there will be some symbolic gestures made to Sanctuary cities, and definitely an end to separating children from parents at the border (you’re in favor of fixing that, right?) for the Hispanic Dems (a majority of them don’t want open borders), and symbolic Hispanic govt appointments; but that’s inevitable no matter which party governs. Hispanics in the next decades will be a more influential force in US politics and life than were the Irish in their hay days.
So, no open border. Father comes to border with 10 yr old daughter. What do you do with them?
I think they will process them, tell them to show up for immigration hearing, let them go, never to be seen again. To me thats open border
The left does not support the LABEL open borders, They are fine with the concept.
We are seeing the same with this nonsense from Jay on Biden’s remarks.
If Biden was not criticising Trump’s travel restrictions – then what were Biden’s – and numerous other democrats from the same time period criticising ?’
You are constantly trying to pretend there is parity between the left and right. that both are about equally wrong.
I am not actually a big fan of the right. libertarians are ideologically at odds with the right on numerous issues – including with Trump.
But it is pretty easy to deal with most of those on the right – they are straight forward, they say what they mean. They do not play word games. They very rarely claim they did not asy what they plainly said, and though those on the right might spin what those on the left say to be a little more to the left than it actually is – they do not outright make up things that the left says or does, and they do not try to make what they have said mean the opposite.
None of that is true of the left.
Jay is still trying to tell us that Page is a Russian asset.
And here he is trying to tell us Biden said something entirely different than what he said.
Is their context missing ? There has been plenty of context missing from claims regarding Trump, and with that context statements that at best meant what the left claimed – if you looked through a keyhole into a mirror and arround a corner, and quite often clearly meant something entirely different with context.
Biden’s remarks are clear. Biden is inarguably saying Trump acted Wrong.
So what was Trump’s action that was wrong ? Travel restrictions on China.
If you say context would change that – OK – provide the context.
But this deceptive use of words, is close to entirely a game of the left.
Both sides in our modern political conflicts may be wrong.
But they are not even close to equally wrong.
Both sides may be dangerous,
But they are not equally dangerous.
Both sides may lie, but the lies are not of equal scale or error.
“but I KNOW he doesn’t do, hasn’t done, won’t do anywhere near as wrong as Trump has done,”
Then you should be able to list each of there extremely significant wrong actions Trump has taken, and prove credibily that Biden would have done better,
I can make a long list of mistakes Trump has made, and an even longer list for Obama/Biden.
But more importantly – those of Trump have been less significant.
Further from such lists we can actually discuss each issue, we can assess the severity of each. The vast majority of the things I think Trump has done wrong do not have alot of significance. The majority of things Obama/Biden did wrong have greater significance.
Though we do have an interesting situation. Covid19 has come from out of the blue and made all else insignificant.
I personally think its importance has been bloated 1000 times beyond any reality,
We are about to have a recession – without good reason. Under the worst of circumstances Covid19 will amount to the worst flu year in a long long time.
It is not something that should cause a recession regardless, and it would not have in previous times. But today it will. My ranting at its insignificance will not change the fact that we are acting as if it is unbeleivably important.
There are many many things that will happen between now and the election – that were foreseable 2 months ago that are all likely to help Trump.
But there is almost nothing that can happen between now and November that will really effect the election except Covid19.
If Covid19 miraculously vaporizes in a month or 6weeks – the election will still be about Trump the hero, If millions die – it will be about Trump the goat.
Biden is irrelevant.
If Biden is elected we will go back to the same nonsense as during Obama.
No, that will not be open borders, Biden will selectively enforce immigration laws – and lots of people will be deported.
But he will leave border enforcement weak and we will see 4+ times as many illegal immigrants as now. The same levels as Obama or more.
This is a necescity for the survival of the democratic party.
Yes, that is what all the democrats in politics want – but no it is not what the majority of people want.
BTW family separation has essentially being fixed – we are now detaining illegals in Mexico.
As to being for family separation ? Change the law. I am NOT FOR presidents excercising huge discretion regarding what laws they enforce. The president swears to faithfully execute the law. That is the law as written not the one he wishes for.
I may want our laws to be quite different – but I REQUIRE a president to enforce the laws we have. If the president will not enforce the laws I do not like – why should I beleive he will enforce the laws I do like ?
I would note that many of your constructs are actual minorities.
You are probably correct that a majority of hispanic dems do not want a wall.
That is not a majority of hispanics.
https://www.americanlibertyreport.com/articles/pbs-buries-poll-showing-hispanic-support-for-border-wall-skyrocketing-since-shutdown/
Hispanics are likely to be a highly influential voice in the future.
I would note that hispanics are pretty extremely CATHOLIC. Regardless, they are not monolithic – either in that each hispanic group is not the same, nor in that hispanics are behind democrats on every issue.
You noted the past importance of the Irish vote – and there was also the italian vote.
Just about every immigrant vote in US history was most strongly behind the progressives of their time, and slowly as they prospered over generations they moved right.
Trump did not get elected solely on the votes of white angle saxon protestant males who are descendants of those who came here on the mayflower.
One of the reasons that democrats need large amounts of illegal immigration is that with each generation away from being an immigrant, people move further to the right.
And Hispanics start out oddly positioned relative to the democratic party to start.
The question is not whether Biden’s remarks were “bad” or not.
If you honestly beleive the Travel restrictions were a bad idea – then Biden’s remarks advocated good policy. But if you beleive the travel restrictions were a good idea – then Biden’s remarks advocated bad policy.
Either of those positions are arguable. I may beleive one is better than the other, but I can understand the possibility that you might beleive the other. Further we can debate the issue with facts, logic and reason. I am not sure the facts are sufficiently well established that we can resolve the matter, but we can still have an honest debate.
But that is not what is going on – we are not having an honest difference of opinion.
Jay and others are here trying to pretend – that Biden actually agreed with Trump’s travel restrictions – because today they appear to have broad public support, and that Biden’s criticism was over some unidentified other purportedly xenophobic action of Trump’s.
We can not function with that kind of deception.
If Biden actually beleive something – then stand up for that – whatever it is.
Trump is far from perfect. Further there are some instances where he is at odds with himself in both words and actions.
But that is not commonplace.
With Biden it is constant. What he says means nothing. Is there anything that he has said in assorted democratic debates that anyone here trusts ?
Or just the one simple question.
Was Trump’s travel restriction a good idea or a bad one and why ?
And I am not interested in – they could have been done better. Of course they could, everything could be done better, and if you want imperfect but steady progress towards better look somewhere besides govenrment.
Regardless, I am not asking whether Trump’s choice was perfect, only whether it was better than doing nothing about Travel.
Are you capable of honestly answering that ? I do not care if you say no. That is then something we can debate. And if you say yes – we can debate how it could have been better.
But you want to both pretend Trump failed miserably when he did something that you now accept as reasonable, Or more accurately you want to pretend Biden did not screw up by saying Trump should not have acted, when NOW most people think Trump should have acted sooner.
That is hypocracy.
That is not about the left being blind to the flaws in their own ideology or the right being blind to its flaws.
That is about not having any principles or values, of making everything up as you go based on how it sounds or polls, and then shifting your position 180 when you lose support and pretending that what you said or did before never happened.
Dave “Regardless, I am not asking whether Trump’s choice was perfect, only whether it was better than doing nothing about Travel.”
Since this came through e-mail as a response to my comment, I will answer your question.
first, who can answer this question with 100% confidence. Only data can be used to analyze the outcomes after all of this has disappeared.
But right now I believe that much more good has come from this than harm. Only time will tell. I just wish people would heed the warning, stay home for a couple weeks with little contact with others, and this would die out. But we now have 255 official cases in NC and most are associated with people traveling previously and spring break brain farts..
“But right now I believe that much more good has come from this than harm. Only time will tell. I just wish people would heed the warning, stay home for a couple weeks with little contact with others, and this would die out. But we now have 255 official cases in NC and most are associated with people traveling previously and spring break brain farts..”
You may be right – but even that is not set in concrete.
Thus far, China, Tiawan, South Korea, Singapore, Japan, HK appear to have “contained” this.
And even Italy and Iran appear to have peaked – the new cases per day are declining.
There is no clear pattern to the actions of each country.
Japan did fundimentally the same thing as the US – albeit more successfully,
They restricted travel and chased down people who had traveled to effected areas and those who had contact with them. They did very limited testing.
They have not shut down businesses, or subways, or … and they have the greatest population density in the world. So far they appear to have it under control, and they are also seeing declines in Flu and colds which indicates that voluntary choices of people are working.
I do not think any (successful) country other than China engaged int he shutdowns we are doing in the US. South Korea continued business but did massive public testing.
It is probable that the data from SK on the spread and actual fatality rate is the most accurate – as they have done some of the best and broadest testing. And they have the lowest fatality rate – probably because they have best identified the total number of actual cases.
Except for China – no other successful country broadly shutdown their economy.
Sorry, not specific enough in my comment. Most all N.C. cases tied to out of state travel.
There is an enormous amount that we do not know.
And there is alot that we know than has enormous error bars
The FACT is that we do not have sufficient quality information to make public policy decisions.
Even your assertion that youth engaged in Spring Break in FL was a brain dead idea, is not unquestionably true.
There is significant evidence that closing the economy is a bad decision.
There is some evidence that community spread – as in the spread from one stranger to another through casual contact is extremely rare.
That most spread is from people who are in close contact with each other for long periods.
There are models that support the actions being taken.
But there are models that indicate that many actions are making it worse not better.
There is a very good argument that people under 30 should pretty much go about their lives as normal – going to school, gathering in groups, … as long as they are basically healthy.
That not only are they unlikely to get very sick if at all from this, but that they are also less likely to spread it.
That primarily what the young (and the rest of us) should do, is avoid the old and the vulnerable.
These claims or models could be wrong.
But we do not know, and we likely will not know for certain until it is way too late.
Ron, I think the faux impeachment was a huge mistake of democrats.
But I am not interested in the argument that congress or reporters should have been looking elsewhere in December and January.
The actual responsibility to protect that country from this rested with CDC, NIH. and ultimately Trump.
Trump is correct that the chinese government was lying to everyone – and that made things worse. But ultimately our best shot was stopping this at the border and we failed – Trump failed. Not Pelosi, The media also failed, but it was still Trump’s job not theirs.
Trump failed at the border. We can make excuses – Trump acted more agressively than CDDC and NIH/ recomended, WHO opposed what he did, Biden or Clinton or Obama would have been worse. All true, but Trump still failed. He was president, The buck stops there.
But we are NOT done. I expect mistakes from government unfortunately, Trump screwed up, now we must move on. There is alot that has been done since that I oppose.
I am vigorously opposed to this keynesian nonsense – we are now up to $2T – this is just insane. But it is hard to blame Trump for that – because everyone is falling all over themselves to out spend each other. Trump is actually winning the political war here – if not with me.
I think Trump has come pretty close to bitch slapping the FDA over drug approvals.
He is strongly pushing the FDA to get out of the way of CloroQuin and other promising treatments, and and Trump is vascillating on Vaccines – alternating between praising the people who are moving quickly and trying to diminish expectations of a vaccine quickly.
I expect that soon he is going to bitch slap the FDA to expedite vaccine testing.
Both of those are wise moves.
In the end Trump will be judges by each of us on all his actions – not just one.
And we are along way from judgement day,
And Biden and democrats have suddenly become nearly irrelevant.
As wrong as I think all this Keynesian bullshit is, Trump has out manuevered democrats politically. The only ground he has left them to attack him from is the far right, and they are not going there.
This election is NOW going to be about Trump’s handling of this epidemic AND the economy.
Biden and democrats are completely irrelevant. This is Trump’s to win or lose based on his actions. He has a great deal of power – we give leaders massive power in national emergencies. And even those on the left are not going to challenge this.
I think Trump’s bar for success is relatively low – I think he wins if he does anything short of a disasterous job. I think he wins if he does better than Europe.
But whatever I think – voters will actually decide.
Biden has noticeably gone into hiding.
It does not matter, he has probably locked the democratic nomination,
But no one is going to want to hear from him from now to the election.
At the same time Trump has bought himself the nations and the medias attention in a new way for a very very long time.
“But I am not interested in the argument that congress or reporters should have been looking elsewhere in December and January.”
Well here again we disagree. I think it is the responsibility of the press to investigate and report to the public important issues that come up. In this day and age of incompetent and criminal behavior by all elected officials who are bought and paid for by lobbyist and large corporations, only a press will uncover issues that can become a political issue forcing elected officials to do the right thing.
While the press was snipe hunting, no one of prominence was investigating rumors of a bad virus in china. Had they done that maybe nothing would be different. Had they done that, maybe it could have been isolated to china. Who knows. NO ONE!. But there could be a 50-50 chance that could have occurred.
“I think it is the responsibility of the press to investigate and report to the public important issues that come up.”
Ansolutely – and we have a free press where each outlet can decide what it covers and each of us can decide what outlets we follow.
“In this day and age of incompetent and criminal behavior by all elected officials who are bought and paid for by lobbyist and large corporations, only a press will uncover issues that can become a political issue forcing elected officials to do the right thing.”
We can dream.
In reality, whatever power government has will be used corruptly.
We are now preparing to spend $2T on covid19.
I expect that Priscilla’s son will get chickenshit.
But somehow I am sure Hunter Biden will profit.
Stopping this in China likely required quick action by China in December.
The press was not going to take an interest yet.
Jay word parsing – and bad word parsing at that.
Biden’s statements – he made more than one, were made immediately after Trump restricted travel from china. The Xenophobia Biden’s was complaining about was restricting travel from China. That was the only anit-chinese behavior Trump had engaged in at the time, and in fact imnmediately prior to the virus becoming an Issue Trump was praising China – as he had just struck a trade deal with them. That is Trump’s norm – you are evil, vile rocketman right up until you shake hands on a deal – then you are a wonderful good leader with whom we can get along.
There was nothing else for Biden to claim was Xenophobic at the time.
Next, Biden has historically sided with the WHO in believing that travel bans are useless.
So whether Biden was talking about the travel ban at that moment – he is still opposed to Travel bans and likely would have waited far longer than Trump – if he would have imposed one at all.
Any claim that Biden would have done something better is hogwash.
Next, though I think it is beyond any doubt that Biden would have done much worse – though he would have faced a much friendlier press corp, in the end what I beleive does not matter.
People are not happy about some of the things Trump has done, but their impression is improving. Trump’s corona Virus approval is net positive, higher than his overall approval.
Further regardless of my criticism’s of Biden – frankly few people actually think Biden would have done better. I would like to beleive they are well informed, but I think that they just do not assess Biden as up to this.
But it does not matter, precisely why, Biden’s fate is no longer in his own hands – if it ever was.
Everything is on Trump now. If people as a whole – not the media, not the left, not the press beleive when november rolls arround that he has botched this – he is toast.
The lack of faith most people have in Biden is an asset for Trump.
Like the two men running from the bear in the Woods. Trump does not need to outrun Corona, he just needs to do better than people beleive Biden would have.
Further Trump has democrats in a bind.
I think all this spending – now we are up to $2T is an enormous waste.
But Trump has flanked democrats. Trump is vastly over spending and making populist promises, and democrats MUST work with him.
He has left them very little room to attack without looking bad themselves.
Put simply even though Trump owns this mess – so do democrats.
That will ultimately change – but it will take a long time.
Fine, jay – give us some context.
Find some way to spin the very remarks YOU quoted.
What ordinary people quite reasonably conclude – in context or out, is that Biden would have proceded much more cautiously.
And what most people currently grasp is that Trump proceeded TOO cautiously.
You can criticise Trump here – but not without taking Biden with him.
If you think some context helps – the context I see is these were RIGHT AFTER the Travel restrictions were imposed.
The context makes it clear to most that Biden is saying – I would not do that.
I am not comfortable trusting Trump’s instincts.
I am not comfortable trusting Biden’s or Pelosi’s or any of our political criters.
I think they are making innumerable mistakes – including Trump.
I think that we are exagerating this greatly, and that we are destroying the economy – which will do more harm than Covid19 – even if this all passes quickly.
But no one is listening to me, and my best outcome is going to be “i told you so” when it is over.
Beyond that I think up until fairly recently this has been a CDC/FDA/NIH issue.
People who have been in those positions much longer than Trump.
The same people would be in the same positions making the same decisions if Biden was president.
Government is going to screw up no matter what.
If you think that was deceptive you should read your posts.
It is not like anyone accused Biden of being a Russian Asset ?
I honestly do not care what you think is deceptive – so long as you apply the same standards consistently. But you do not.
This has been a black eye to the media and to the left.
Several Youtuber’s are making hay with clips of leftists and media talking heads accusing Trump of being racist or xenophobic followed by dozens of clips of them saying exactly the same thing that Trump said that was racist or xenophobic.
In many instance we do not know what the right action was.
But hypocracy is crystal clear.
Do not attack Trump for saying the same things you have been saying for a month.
Just so everyone is clear – Fork over the economy – and that means people die.
Standard of living correlates strongly to life expectancy.
Warning: You might want to share this with friends and family who dont want more family jembers.
https://q1043.iheart.com/content/2020-03-18-coronavirus-is-causing-condom-shortages-and-a-rise-in-sex-toy-sales/
Here’s another:
https://www.greensboro.com/news/local_news/it-s-percent-just-panic-local-sales-of-guns-ammunition/article_2d706905-3d9e-5575-bb1e-85ef6f6ab9ed.amp.html?__twitter_impression=true
Now this is written from a COVID-19 perspective and they are blaming that, but I have heard people say ” this crisis could elect Biden, we need to buy our gun now because the democrats are going to stop gun sales and I want one now”. Also heard ” Biden’s gona take the guns away and they will be taking mine after a long fight. Get me a couple more before that happens”.
So we have toilet paper , hand sanitizer and food in CA in short supply.
We have a condom shortage nationwide.
And we have a run on guns and ammo in N.C.
Sure can tell the political beliefs and whats important basedon geography.
Looks like sex is important anywhere!
There is definitely a run on guns and ammo.
But the “Biden is getting elected” meme is not likely the driver.
We have seen spikes in gun and ammo sales after every mass shooting – everytime 2A people were scared that some draconian gun laws would pass RIGHT NOW.
Or when Obama was elected or other events like that.
What I am hearing is that much of the current spike in gun and ammo sales – is those on the left fearing that Covid19 is going to reduce the world to Mad Max.
2A advocates have been scared so many times – they already have their guns.
Further this is mostly first time gun buyers, and though nationwide the bigest spike is in populous places with strict gun control laws.
But trust me – the shelves will be restocked – of toilet paper and hand sanitizer and even guns and ammo.
And if they are not – you should look for a white, red, black, and pale horse, because the appocolypse has arrived.
“But the “Biden is getting elected” meme is not likely the driver.”
Good to here. Come fall when its apparent that Biden is going to get elected, they will have a good fall and Christmas season. Those that don’t buy now and fear Bidens gun laws will buy then.
This is LONG
It is also extensive, and includes myriads of citations.
Further it covers fairly well the error bars – the range in predictions
of different values.
View at Medium.com
View at Medium.com
Same error code
Medium.com returns Error code 410 this post is under investigation or was found in violation of the Medium Rules
The article is now at Zerohedge.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with this article except that some left wing not biologiical social scientist has take issue with it – not actually directly challenging the facts, but just claiming that Ginn should not be allowed to write on the subject.
https://www.zerohedge.com/health/covid-19-evidence-over-hysteria
I found Ginn’s article to be honest and excellent. Contra Bergstrom Ginn is quite open about his own credentials – which though not specific to epidemiology are reasonably impressive.
And I get really pissed at purported experts who are unable to make arguments any better than I am an expert and he is not.
Further I have seen nothing in Bergstrom’s CV that actually suggests he is an expert.
Regardless, Ginn provides massive amounts of data and cites for most of it.
And there is a fundimental difference between Ginn’s assessment and Bergstrom’s
Ginn essentially argues – here are half a dozen possible reasons that Covid19 could prove to be less of a problem than projected.
Only one of those needs prove correct for Ginn’s argument to hold up.
Conversely for Bergstrom to be right ALL of Ginn’s arguments must fail.
Anything is possible – but in human history events like the 1917 Spanish flu are extremely rare. Further no global epidemic ever has infected much more than 25% of the global population.
Apparently the original article on Medium has been taken down.
Here is a link to a repost on ZeroHedge – including a long twitter thread purportedly debunking it.
https://www.zerohedge.com/health/covid-19-evidence-over-hysteria
While there are a FEW points in @CT_Bergstrom critique – almost all of those are openly admitted in the article. Beyond that most of Bergstrom’s critique amounts to bad appeals to authority, slurr’s and insults.
1). I do not care what the topic is, I have no interest in arguments of the form – “Trust me I am the expert, therefore I do not need to support what i say with data, facts, logic, reason”
2) Slurr’s and insults are not arguments.
3). The Core of Ginn’s article is there are many many many reasons to beleive this will not be as bad as predicted. It is likely that some of his arguments will prove wrong.
It is highly unlikely that all of them will.
4). Bergstrom makes almost the same error in converse – except that Bergstrom’s error is bigger.
Ginn essentially argues if ANY of the above is true this will be less bad than predicted,
While Bergstrom argues, that ALL of the above MUST be false.
5). Bergstrom;s makes several obviously false claims. Bergstrom has a particular hatred for Ginn’s assertion that this will approximate a bell curve. Contra Bergstrom – that is very widely accepted – even the 3Blue1Brown video on youtube – and I will take 3B1B over Bergstrom as expert in mathematics and statistics anyday, notes that all epidemics follow a logistical curve – which is a bell curve if you graph active infections rather than total infections.
Regardless, deadly infectuous diseases MUST follow some approximately bell shaped curve – if they did not all of humanity would have been wiped out more than 100,000 years ago.
Absolutely interventions alter both the height and the shape of the curve – Ginn did not deny that, But Bergstom’s critique assumes that no deadly infectuous disease will ever end on its own – So why does humanity still exist ?
I would further note that I do not think there is an infectuous disease in all of human history that has ever effected 100% of the population. The Spanish Flu which is often noted now, only infected 27% of the world population – and it occured during WWI and we not merely failed to stop it, but we prioritized the war over the flu in such a way as to with certainty make it much worse.
Bergstrom further claims that everywhere this has been stopped it was done using draconian methods. That is actually false. China, Tiawan, Japan, HK, Singapore, South Korea all used
significantly different approaches to containing this – and they all appear to have.
I would further note that based on the JHU data many countries appear to be peaking.
The situation in Italy is bad – but the number of daily new cases is declining.
The US has suddenly shot above a number of european countries for total infections (we are still very low interms of infections per million of population), regardless, that appears to be because those countries daily new cases are starting to drop too.
Is social distancing working, is slowly rising temperatures and humidity making the spread more difficult, is slowly increasing daylight killing this or is there some other natural limiting factor on Covid19 ? I do not have the answer to that, Ginn proposes many possible answers,
But Bergstrom denies it is happening.
Maybe Bergstrom is right – I have been paying very close attention to China, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, HK and Singapore – because the malthusian scenarios require that the repreives in this countries must be temporary.
I am not trying to sell anything that Trump or Biden are saying or doing.
But this is the center left trashing Biden.
Ok, this article is very troubling. The soaring Italian death rate from coronavirus may be a complete fake out:
“The way in which we code deaths in our country is very generous in the sense that all the people who die in hospitals with the coronavirus are deemed to be dying of the coronavirus.
“On re-evaluation by the National Institute of Health, only 12 per cent of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88 per cent of patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity – many had two or three,” he says.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/have-many-coronavirus-patients-died-italy/
So, if people are dying of coronavirus in an Italian hospital, EVERYONE is considered to have died of corona virus, even if they actually died of something else!
We are doing this too ~ I mentioned just the other day about a death in NJ, in which the deceased had multiple health problems, including TWO heart attacks, right before he died.
But they said he died of covid19. After TWO heart attcks.
Are we being had? Do the math ~ based on this article, Italy has had ‘only’ 500-600 deaths of covid19 , not 5000! That’s a pretty big re-evaluation…
There is lots of stuff like this. Most any serious article on this expects that the death rates will be recalculated lower – much lower in the future – but that will be 12 months or more.
BTW we have the same thing in reverse with flu and colds. When we check tissue sames of people who died of respiratory failures we find that almost all of them had the flu or cold virus. But their deaths were attributed to other causes.
But these stats are being used to terrify people, and to justify massive intrusions by governments, particularly OUR government, on our economy and our freedom.
If this virus is not as deadly as we’ve been told, then why are we being lied to, and told that 5,000 people in Italy have died of the virus, when 90% of those people likely died of something else?
Massive govt intrusions like this?
“The Department of Justice is using the coronavirus outbreak to ask Congress for sweeping emergency powers including suspending habeas corpus during an emergency…”
https://www.salon.com/2020/03/22/conservatives-push-back-on-bill-barrs-reported-plan-to-detain-indefinitely-without-a-trial_partner/
Do you see me supporting any of this ?
I do not support Much of this nonsense that is being engaged inj.
Yes, exactly.
And, before anyone accuses me of not taking the virus “seriously,” I absolutely DO take it seriously, but that does not mean that I am going to ignore evidence that there are those who have a vested interest in stoking fear and panic over this, and in having our recovery from the economic effects last as long as possible.
Why is the FDA claiming that it cannot begin tests of azythromycin and hyrocloroquinone right away, despite many doctors already using it, desperate patients self-medicating with it, and a dozen states in the US on lockdown?
Does that sould like they are taking a potential life-saving treatment seriously? Not to me, it doesn’t. If they think that this treatment is overblown as a cure, than let us know why.
As it is now, they’re just saying that they can ramp up for at least a month…..
Why did Dr. Faucci claim the evidence on Zythromax and Chloraquin was anecdotal – it was not. It is the results of medical studies in china where many different approaches were studied. The ZC studies are NOT annecdotal, they are solidly scientific and evidence based.
What the ZC studies are NOT is double blind.
But there success rate was incredilble. They had a very near 100% cure rate in SEVERE cases.
I beleive i linked another article about a lab that is doing studies round the clock now.
They are testing how covid19 reproduces in cells, They are using the RNA from Covid19 to identify every single human protein that is critical to the growth of Covid19 in cells.
they initially identified 5 proteins, they have subsequently identified 50 more.
They are then using the information on the identified proteins to search the FDA’s existing database of already approved drugs searching for drugs that effect the identified proteins.
The objective is to find an existing and approved drug that alters the behavior of a protein that Covid19 depends on for reproduction in a way that will thwart the growth of the virus.
They have already moved to testing several candidates, with good reasons to expect success.
This is again an approach that has only been possible recently.
Link to success of China success rate?
This is from France – not China, but it is based on the work in China, and it replicates the results from China. Further though this study was not double blind it WAS a controled study.
When Faucci said the evidence for this was anecedotal – that was a significant misstatement.
The evidence is significantly stronger than “anecdotal”.
It is the results from an uncrontrolled study in China, replicated by a controlled study in France.
Further it is consistent with 25 years of studies strongly suggesting that Hydrocloraquine and Erythromycin are each effective antivirals.
I would further notes that the French study replicated the Chinese study – patients were completely virus free i 6 days – rather than 14, and from the begining aof treatment improved faster.
Lets be clear – this is NOT absolute incontrovertable proof of efficacy. But it is strong evidence of a high probability there is a strong positive benefit – up to an including something rare with viruses – A CURE.
This is also a very low risk treatment – both Zythromecin and Hyrdocloraquin are approved drugs – they are approved by the FDA for human treatment at specific dose levels.
OK I cant view videos posted here on my tablet and cant find it above. What is it about?
Search for
“Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin as a treatment of COVID-19”
on youtube.
zNever mind got it!
Both Cloraquine and hydroxycloraquine were used successfully by the chinese.
Both are listed as essential drugs by the WHO – that means they serve a critical purpose(s) and a generally safe.
Cloraquine is dirt cheap, Hydroxycloraquine is slightly more expensive – they are readily available in the US but only by perscription.
The chinese data indicates that they reduce the severtity of a Covid19 infection by 40%.
That translates into an exponential increase int he likelyhood of survival.
Zythromax alone has a similar effectiveness – by Zythromax + Cloraquine have a greater than additive effect – they effectively cure Covid19 in 5 days. even in severe cases.
Dave, Priscilla
“Cloraquine is dirt cheap,”
Now you know why they are not promoting it.
drug companies cant make any money off it.
I don’t know how Italy codes medical records. I d know a “little” about how we do it here.
You enter hospital with heart attack, Death occurs. Heart attack is the cause.
You enter hospital as a healthy individual with lung congestion, you develop pneumonia. The cause of death most likely will be coded as death due to respiratory failure as a result of pneumonia due to consequences from covid-19
You are a diabetic, with heart issues, contact Covid-19 and develop pneumonia and die. Cause of death probably coded as respiratory failure as a result of pneumonia as a result of covid-19 with co-morbit conditions of heart failure and diabetes.
In most all cases, the covid-19 will not be the actual cause of death, but the result of the virus is the cause of death as a consequence of the virus..
Thanks, Ron. I understand the need to identify the immediate cause of death. But, it seems as if there is a rush to identify any death of a sick elderly person in a hospital that has coronavirus as a coronavirus death, and I don’t think that this provides us with accurate data on the actual death rate from the virus.
To be blunt, if a 90 year old, with congestive heart failure and one foot in the grave, enters the hospital, is considered critical, then tests positive for corona, it may be that corona had nothing to do with his death.
Here, in the US, the hospitals are not being overwhelmed with the virus, and have no excuse for this kind of coding.
I suppose Italy may be a different story, but, if 88% of deaths attributed to c-virus are not, in fact, caused by it, epidemiologists need to know that.
Even in China the death rate is going down.
I beleive Wuhan is now reporting 1.4% – and that is expected to drop further as better studies of the number of undectected cases arise and as meany deaths are reclassified.
We also have this issue with the flu and cold.
Both of which are highly fatal to people who are already at deaths door.
My fathers death was listed as pneumonia, but he had 2 other issues that were going to kill him within the next month or two, and several others that would have killed him in less than a year.
More of the usual double-talk BS from Trump:
Trump said at a news conference Friday that he was using the DEFENSE PRODUCTION ACT to get critical supplies like masks and ventilators to the front lines of the coronavirus fight and had directed “a lot” of companies to produce those key supplies. When asked which companies he had directed he fumbled “many” and skirted the question.
Today FEMA Administrator Peter Gaynor said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that no, Trump hadn’t evoked the DPA because private companies were “stepping up on their own.”
That’s not much help to states and federal agencies still bidding against each other for those SCARSE products. It could take weeks before there’s additional product available. Why didn’t the dumb ass president DO BOTH! Pep talk the companies to get out more supplies, and ship the government inventories NOW?
Time seems to think otherwise. as does Fix, ABC the Hill, USA today, …
https://time.com/5807314/trump-defense-production-act-coronavirus/
But I there does appear to be some confusion.
There are atleast some statements by some in the administrationt hat the DPA has not yet been invoked – because private businesses are fully cooperating and involing it is not necescary.
With respect to your argument – does it matter which is true ?
Which is more important to you – whether critical goods are getting where they are needed ?
Or whether Trump has asserted some law to empower him to order what is already being done ?
“That’s not much help to states and federal agencies still bidding against each other for those SCARSE products.”
If something is scarse – it is scarse. Invoking DPA will not make it less scarce.
If there are 10M masks available right now, and an assortment of agencies are demanding 30M – it is irrelevant whether they are bidding against each other, there are still not enough to meet demand.
Further it can be presumed that no federal or state agency is actually demanding what they need right now. They are demanding to have right now what they will need over the next month.
All scarcity is temporary. If there are only 10M of something today – there will be 30m in a week.
Even in Los Angles, more Toilet paper than could be used in the next week disapears from LA stores every day. And the next morning – another full weeks supply shows up.
There are always going to be complaints of shortages. Everyone is scared – including federal agencies.
BTW the DPA is about government exerting control over private production.
The ability to direct existing military stockpiles is within the presidents authority without invoking the DPA and has already been done.
Trump may yet actually invoke the DPA. but there is no need to so long as private industry is cooperating, which they are certainly going to.
Further invoking the DPA has the danger of making the problems worse.
You noted many different government agencies competing for a limited resource.
Without the DPA – that industry gets to determine how to best allocate limited resources.
It is likely that each business has the best idea of how much of what it can produce how quickly and how to prioritize deliveries.
With the DPA the federal government decides – specifically the department of defense. not the business, not state or local governments not the FDA or CDC.
The likelyhood of DoD allocating resources as well as the company can itself are slim to none.
“It could take weeks before there’s additional product available.”
It could, but whether the DPA is invoked or not, it will take the same amount of time.
Jay, my “Yes, exactly” response was to you. I responded via the WordPress app on my phone, so I didn’t realize that my answer would not should immediately beneath your comment.
In any case, yes. Whether it’s the legislative branch or the executive branch using a crisis to impose unreasonable restrictions on our freedoms, I am both skeptical and concerned.
Why are governors and mayors (in the case of Philadelphia and NYC) allowing prisoners out of jail, announcing that there will be no arrests for non-violent crimes, such as drug peddling, burglary, and prostitiution, and continuing to operate as sanctuary cities, while threatening that citizens walking or driving to a grocery or pharmacy can be pulled over by police and made to state why they are outside of their homes?
Rhetorical question, of course.
The Salon article at your link states that “In making the case for the change, the DOJ document wrote that individual judges can currently pause proceedings during emergencies, but that their proposal would make sure all judges in any particular district could handle emergencies “in a consistent manner.”
I don’t necessarily disagree with this, and, if we’re pausing everything else, while government is shut down, why not judicial proceedings? But, it’s still a power grab, whether or not we agree with the necessity or lack thereof. The concern becomes: Is it necessary and temporary?
Lincoln suspended habeas corpus in cases involving prisoners of war, spies, traitors, or any member of the military. He also suspended habeas corpus entirely and imposed martial law in Kentucky. Chief Justice Roger Taney denounced Lincoln for this, and insisted that POTUS did not have this power, which Lincoln had claimed under Article 1. Lincoln prevailed.
I’m not saying that there is no conceivable reason to invoke emergency restrictions. But, I’m not convinced that we are currently in a situation that warrants it.
And, speaking of power grabs, Queen Nancy just rejected the $2T bi-partisan coronavirus aid package and says she’s going to propose her own. So, no relief yet for the small businesses being shut down.
And guess what? Planned Parenthood gets a bailout in her package.
https://pjmedia.com/trending/democrats-refusing-to-support-2-trillion-stim-bill-unless-it-includes-a-bailout-for-planned-parenthood/
I can only hope they fight over this long enough to do nothing.
$1T, $2T PP, no PP this is a huge mistake.
It will do very little for anyone who actually needs it, and the government dumping money on us is not what is fundimentally needed.
I’ll have to disagree with you on this. We would all pay a heavy price, if the government does not act responsibly and maintain liquidity in the economy, while it is essentially shut down.
It would take years to rebuild if the vulnerable industries, as well as many small and medium buinesses, are not able to weather this ~ and many of them won’t. The toll of human suffering would be enormous, far exceeding anythng that the virus would inflict.
No question that the stimulus will be worse and far more expensive, because the Dems have decided to play politics. They negotiated in bad faith, and then filibustered at the last moment.
Once the GOP gives in to their demands, the thing will pass.
I support it if certain criteria is met.
Large corporations get loan. No bailout.
Large corporations can not buy back stock until loan paid off.
Large corp CEO’s pay frozen, no bonuses while loan outstanding.
Large corp, no exemptions to above made by anyone unless included in stand alone legislation passed by congress.
(Yes I am dreaming on above)
Small business, loans through local SBA’s. Based on heed, could be converted to direct support payment.
All of the above should be required to maintain minimum staffing at the level on February 27th. while loans are outstanding. Small business exempted with financial requirements dictating needs to SBA after some pre defined period.
One additional item, required minimum distributions from retirement accounts should be suspended. Why require retired individuals to withdraw funds with markets down 20%- 30% from Dec 31 balances. Would have little impact on costs, a fly on an elephants ass.
Bet little of this gets included.
I will ask for further amendments to your “bailouts”
No business is required to accept any bailout funds, and if they do not, they are free to continue their business as usual.
The government drops ALL manditory business closures. We have effective means of operating nearly every business through this mess whether essential or not, without bailouts.
Or lets just drop the bailouts entirely. The the government focus on its job – which is NOT the economy. Find the people who have been infected, and isolate them.
Figure out how to get the FDA out of the way of drug and vaccine approvals – because both drugs and vaccines are already coming.
You are ranting about all the things that government should do to the rest of us – specifically business.
We did not fail here. It is not the free market that failed to identify or contain this virus.
While am not looking to offer travel, hospitality, entertainment, … bailouts,
They did not fail.
You continuously rant at me about “fairness” – and here you are looking to punish businesses and people – because government once again screwed up.
Unlike Jay – I do not think we are facing Armageddon. But what we are facing is “not fair”,
Businesses did not ask for it, airlines did not ask for it, CEO’s did not ask for it.
There are only two choices here – this is a failure of government – and most governments across the world have failed at a pretty fundimental task – one right out of the social contract,
Or this is just nature pissing all over us and pointing out once again – “life’s not fair”.
To Priscilla – your son did not ask for this – it is “not fair”. The myriads of people going to be laid off – did not ask for this – its “Not fair”. The people whose 401K’s have tanked did not ask for this – its “not fair”.
But the $trillion dollars that congress is ultimatly going to waste on this is ultimately coming from somewhere. It is no more free money than Warren’s free college. Someone is paying for this – and it is NOT the government. The Fed is dumping trillions of dollars into the market right now – in a different way someone is going to have to pay for that too.
None of that is fair either.
I can understand that you want your son bailed out.
I want my $1200 or whatever it is that they are promising.
But i am not so stupid as to beleive that it is free.
Further all the money in the world is useless unless we are producing the things that we want and need.
None of this is fair. Changling who gets screwed and how they get screwed does not make this any better.
Dave, yes I rant about fairness when the process in place brought to us by politically driven policies creates unfair results. It is 100% apparent when people look at trade policies with China that policies letting them close their country to our products, but allowing them to send us all their shitty products free of tariffs is unfair, eliminates jobs and , for example, places us in unsafe conditions when they control drug distribution for so many drugs.
Now for stimulus. You are an extreme libertarian. I carry many labels with libertarian leanings. I call it being a compassionate libertarian. Where you are ready to tell thousands of restaurant owners, rural hospitals, millions of employees and thousands of small business owners ” fk you”, I am much more compassionate and willing to offer loans to these companies with stipulations so they can continue.
Loaning money is not a bailout. It only becomes a bailout when used in a way that results in CEO huge bonuses, stock buybacks and other actions that do nothing for jobs and only serve the corp. elite.
Now for the stimulus checks. I dont agree with most of it. Why do I need a check. My daughter is a nurse, NICU, babies are still being delivered, some needing intensive care, still working, why does she need a check. My son, 5 Guys restaurant manager, doing take out and delivery, still open. He doesnt need a check. Millions still working, why do they need checks?
But, thousands will be out of work and unemployment covers little of their normal income. They need help. Compassion, not an “Oh I’m sorry, F you”.
“Dave, yes I rant about fairness when the process in place brought to us by politically driven policies creates unfair results.”
Life is unfair. We can not morrally correct that by force.
Regardless, if the problem is politicians – dis-empower politicians,
If you have an ingrown toe nail do you cut off your arm ?
“Regardless, if the problem is politicians – dis-empower politicians,”
Now that we can agree on totally. But would you agree the chances of it happening is not good?
I am not sure I agree that your proposals would actually be good.
But lets presume they are.
What are the chances that they get passed and work without loopholes ?
Requires sign in. Dont have one. Is it free?
Is Youtube no longer free ?
that’s what I am asking. It tells me this is adult information and I need to set up an account
The link is to a youtube video of Creedence Clearwater Revival – “Fortunate Son”
I have no clue how Youtube has decided that is “adult content”.
OK went to the desk top and it opened. From my tablet when I clicked on the youtube link and it said “The Following is adult information. Please sign into your account to access”
That is ridiculous – it is a CCR music video of “Fortunate Son”, it has almost 14M views.
Here, same song, different graphics, 59M views and I can listen without logging in.
YouTube still free. But they hound you to sign up for additional services every time you sign in..
Thanks, no way am I singing up for an account. If I cant get it through a link, no watch!
I am guessing a bit, But I think that for some reason I can not fathom Youtube has flagged this particular music video as adult content.
Why I have no idea ? It is not like this is hip-hop.
Regardless, to view adult content – which on youtube is where they put anything that anyone complains about and some snowflake at youtube is triggered by
Which seems to include most PragerU videos for unknown reasons,
you must have an account on Youtube.
That account is free – except that they constantly hound you to upgrade to Youtube premium.
On other advantage of having a youtube account is that it recommends videos to you based on those you already watched.
But I am increasingly frustrated by youtube and would move quickly if there was an alternative that did not suck.
You tube sounds like Amazon. Do one search about an item, even if just to look at how something looks, and for 2 week you get hundreds of suggestions of stuff remotely associated “based on your previous searches”. Nope think I will just pass on You tube.
Not selling youtube – or amazon.
I use them – because they are useful.
I continue to look for good alternatives – because they have a number of ways of annoying me.
I actually like targeted adds. I prefer NO adds, but if I must have adds – rather those that are reflective of my interests, than the barrage of spam trying to sell me pills to make body parts I have as well as those I do not grow.
Ron – YouTube is a treasure!
Use their app to sign in on your mobile device. Only requires an email address. The ads for additional service are easy to ignore. I use it daily, for tutorials on new tech apps for computer or phone, for cooking recipes, to watch old 1930s & 40s films, to trouble-shoot car and washing machine and electrical problems… anything you need to know, someone has posted a video on it.
Here’s my favorite YouTube chef, making Winter Ribs! Yum!
There goes another flying pig – more agreement between us.
I have told Youtube a bazillion times – I DO NOT WANT THEIR PREMIUM SERVICE.
Every time they ask they make it LESS LIKELY that i will ever change my mind.
“I dont agree with congressional approval for each one.The way McConnell, Shumer and Pelosi cant agree on what day it is, the money would take months to go through their hands.”
I support anything that provides greater opportunity to disagree and gum up the works.
regardless I also support non-delegation. Congress decides how money is spent.
” It is 100% apparent when people look at trade policies with China that policies letting them close their country to our products, but allowing them to send us all their shitty products free of tariffs is unfair, eliminates jobs and , for example, places us in unsafe conditions when they control drug distribution for so many drugs”
No it is not apparent. This is one of those cases where your common sense is at odds with the facts.
The data on free trade over decades is incontrolvertable – the nation with the lowest trade barriers gets the most NET benefit from trade
China gets to threaten US drug supplies Once for about 5 minutes.
They are not going to lose that as leverage – becaude it will do them far more harm that good.
You might think it is common sense to cutoff your nose to spite your face, but it is not a good idea.
“Now for stimulus. You are an extreme libertarian. I carry many labels with libertarian leanings. I call it being a compassionate libertarian.”
This is not about labels – it is about facts. I do not beleive there is a single stimulus program ever that has proven net positive – there is lots of economic data on this.
Whether it is cash for klunkers or ARRA both have been studied and found not just inefective – but actually harmful.
“Where you are ready to tell thousands of restaurant owners, rural hospitals, millions of employees and thousands of small business owners ” fk you”, I am much more compassionate and willing to offer loans to these companies with stipulations so they can continue.”
That would be wonderful – but for two things:
It does not work,
and it is not what actually happens.
It is not compassionate to sell people false hope.
“Loaning money is not a bailout. ”
I do not care what you call it – it does not work.
My son will pay as much in real out of pocket dollars for his education as I did – 40 years ago. But in addition to that out of pocket money he will also borrow about 150K that I did not have to. the cost of education has risen to match the amount of money government would loan. The loans are net negative.
I do not have a problem with Unemployment insurance – I have a problem with government insurance of any kind.
BTW we KNOW that UI or subsidies for not working increase joblessness.
How does that help ?
What you call “compassion” – is done with the force of govenrment.
That is not compassion – that is theft.
If you have compassion for some group go and do something for then – not use force to make others do something for them.
This argument is made repeatedly – but in the real world it has never actually happened.
There have been recessions and depressions and economic turmoil in the past.
Not a one before the existance of the federal reserve destroyed the economy.
The worst economic downturn in US history occured 13 years after the creation of the federal reserve and the concensus among economists is that The Federal Reserve is responsible for the downturn – or atleast for the severity of it.
The biggest problem with the US economy at the moment is that it is shutdown and there is little expectation that it will restart anytime soon.
1.7M people die of Tuberculosis globally each year.
This will have to get 125000 TIMES worse before we match that – and we do not shut down the economy over TB.
People are getting sick – I got that. This is unusual – got that.
But we are not currently on track for Los Almos’s worst case projection.
Los Almos BTW predicted that this can not be contained AT ALL and atleast 7 countries appear to have done so, and only one using measures as draconian as we are seeking to do.
And NO it will not take years to rebuild. The depression of 1921 was slightly deeper than the WORST CASE projections here. The recovery was rapid – about 9 months.
As a rule of thumb absent govenrment intervention recovery is as fast as the decline is.
Absolutely some businesses will fail – and beleive me I am much more bothered by that than this disease itself.
But the overwhelming majority of the broad damage to the economy is being done by the panicked reactions of government and the rest of us.
Yes, the economic carnage that GOVERNMENT is seeking to inflict on us will greatly exceed that of the virus.
The stimulus is a very stupid idea – no matter which version of it you fixate on.
Even you do not seem to grasp the economy is NOT about money.
It is about PRODUCING VALUE. If we stop producing value, no amount of money will undo the damage.
Rand Paul – Libertarian Conserva
Said COVID-19 was. Hoax
His son tested positive.
Today he while waiting for results of his own test, he attended the Senate gym and went swimming in the pool. And ate in the Senate dining room/
His test came back positive.
Guess he’s a man of his word – a hoax should be ignored until proven, right Dave?
Sorry for typos – my keyboard must have COVID-19 symptoms
OK Jay, do some fact checking.
Ron Paul called it a hoax
Rand Paul, HIS son, has virus. William, Rand’s son does not have a known case at this time.
Rand was in gym and dining area, is asymptomatic and was when test came back positive.
So they tested everyone i congress due to travels and contact with so many others.
Wouldnt the senate doctor order the whole senate quarantined if any known direct contacts had occurred?
I’m not quite ready to call “idiot”. I’ll wait for more correct detailed facts.
Ron Paul called the government induced PANIC a hoax. He did not call the disease a hoax.
Only Time will tell us the actual seriousness of the disease. Though there is no outcome so bad as to justify the nonsense we are pulling.
We would be much better off if they shutdown congress.
Ron Paul. March 16th: don’t stay home, go to the beach.
From Column: Ron Paul – The Coronavirus Hoax
“If anything, what people like Fauci and the other fearmongers are demanding will likely make the disease worse. The martial law they dream about will leave people hunkered down inside their homes instead of going outdoors or to the beach where the sunshine and fresh air would help boost immunity. The panic produced by these fearmongers is likely helping spread the disease, as massive crowds rush into Walmart and Costco for that last roll of toilet paper….People should ask themselves whether this coronavirus “pandemic” could be a big hoax, with the actual danger of the disease massively exaggerated by those who seek to profit – financially or politically – from the ensuing panic.”
https://www.fitsnews.com/2020/03/16/guest-column-ron-paul-the-coronavirus-hoax/
Jay, whats your point? Yes Ron Paul said this, not Rand Paul. What am I missing?
Ron Paul said it
Rand Paul has virus.
Why respond to me with this info.
Was responding to Dave’s comment that Ron (Ron Ron Ron) Paul didn’t call the virus a hoax, just the response to it, with evidence from his own words his POV in general was stupid…
“Was responding to Dave’s comment that Ron (Ron Ron Ron) Paul didn’t call the virus a hoax, just the response to it, with evidence from his own words his POV in general was stupid…”
Ron Paul did not call the virus a hoax, he called the panic a hoax,
I do not have a problem with Paul’s words, Nor does a significant minority of the medical community.
Regardless it is a bit odd to call a credibile thesis stupid when the one we are following is unsubstantiated and drivn by fear.
Jay:
OK, let me back up…
Ron Paul link.
Are you using the email to respond that will link comments correctly and show “. in response to RonP?
Or are you commenting directly from wordpress that has no idea where to link something?
If thats the case, could you begin comments with who you are addressing. WordPress sucks past 10 comments using without usingbemail.
Is there some part of this you can actually prove is wrong ?
Before Paul said this there has been an undercurrent within the epidemological community asserting that this shut everything down approach could actually make this worse.
There is a respected minority that have strongly advocated against closing schools
as the effect of Covid19 on teens and preteens is minimal,. and that if they do get infected we much balance the risk they will einfect a vulnerable adult with the fact that as more and more teens and preteens are infected we will significantly raise herd immunity.
The FACT is that no one knows the right course.
We do know what appears to have worked in several countries – none of which took the same approach and only china closed everything down.
Throughout the world – countries that appear to have gotten Covid under control have been following Dr. Paul’s advice.
Just because you disagree with him – does not make him crazy.
Since you like appeals to authority.
Dr. Paul was a US Air Fource Flight Surgeon and a practiving OBGyn for decades
He know more about medicine than you.
Thanks for the corrections, Ron.
Lesson to myself: don’t comment after 2nd giddy glass of Irish Whiskey 🥃
Ron, Rand, easy to confuse.
Going to be interesting with senate needing all there to get something passed. I find it idiotic they dont allow telecomunicating votes, If a senator sit in front of a screen and says aye or no, how is that not an acceptible vote?
Or just try googling before posting, it would save you a great deal of embarrassment.
“If a senator sits in front of a screen and says aye or no, how is that not an acceptible vote?”
Certainly, in an emergency, when senators are capable of voting, but are behaving responsibly by isolating themselves for the requisite period, it should absolutely be acceptable.
And, it will be, when the Democrats are in the majority, and some of their members are self-quarantining. Then it will be a fine idea, just like vitual meetings, and remote classroom teaching.
But I guess that will happen during the next plague.
“Rand Paul – Libertarian Conserva
Said COVID-19 was. Hoax”
You are not a trustworthy source.
Rand Paul did not say Covid19 was a Hoax.
Ron Paul wrote an article called the “The Corona Virus Hoax”, in which he stated that we are blowing Covid19 all out of proportion.
Here is the article. You can read it and tell me what is it that Ron Paul is wrong about.
https://thewashingtonstandard.com/the-coronavirus-hoax-overhyped-to-bring-about-more-tyranny/?utm_source=whatfinger
You can agree or disagree – that has yet to be proven. WorldWide 93% of people with symptoms who are tested test negative – because they have the flu.
That means at this moment there are 20 times more people with the flu than Covid19.
It also means that at this moment about twice as many people are dying of the flu than Covid19.
Sen. Ron Paul has tested positive, he is asymptomatic and feels fine,
He is 57 and in good health which puts him out of high risk groups.
If he should not merely get sick, but become critical – he could recieve Hydrocloraquine and Zythromax which data thus far indicates will cure this in 5 days in more than 90% of CRITICAL cases.
“Guess he’s a man of his word – a hoax should be ignored until proven, right Dave?”
Nothing at all has been proven.
Todate in the US and in the world as a whole more people by a large margin have died from the Flu since the start of this than Covid19. In fact I beleive that more people have died of the flu since the start of this than have died worldwide of Covid19.
Let me ask you – at what point is this a Crisis requiring spending multiple trillions of dollars and shutting down the economy – which WILL KILL PEOPLE, and at what point is it a hoax ?
According to the CDC in the US in the 2019-2020 Flu season up to 3/14/2020
There have been 38-54m cases of the flu in the US,
There have been 17m-25m, flu related hospital/doctor visits
there have been 390K-710K flu related hospitalizations.
There have been 23,000-59,000 flu deaths.
So far there are fewer global confirmed covid19 cases than US hospitalizations for the Flu
There are twice as many US flu deaths than Covid19 deaths world wide.
It is likely those numbers will change, but we are several orders of magnitude short of the Flu.
The Global Flu deaths are estimated at 2 times the current total Covid19 cases.
For people under 30 Covid19 is less serious than the Flu.
Todate NO ONE 9 and under has died from this, and almost no one under 19.
But lets assume that all almost 8B people on the earth will get this and 250m will die.
Jay calling the disease a hoax would be 100% wrong. But no one has done that.
Good god, what else are they going to blame Trump for.
Someone should take X number of tablets
They think ,well if X is good, then XXX is better
Overdose poisoning!
Where is anything he said to blame for this?
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/23/africa/chloroquine-trump-nigeria-intl/index.html
Trump said this, Nigerians apparently listened:
“ It’s shown very encouraging — very, very encouraging early results. And we’re going to be able to make that drug available almost immediately. And that’s where the FDA has been so great. They — they’ve gone through the approval process; it’s been approved. And they did it — they took it down from many, many months to immediate. So we’re going to be able to make that drug available by prescription or states,” Trump said.
Again, false info from the-lip-that-snores: FDA didn’t approve it; they haven’t gone thru the approval process; and the only result that happened ‘almost immediately’ is foolish Nigerians listened to the fool passing off INCORRECT DANGEROUS information.
It’s been FDA approved for YEARS, Jay. What are you talking about?
“Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), sold under the brand name Plaquenil among others, is a medication used for the prevention and treatment of certain types of malaria.[2] Specifically it is used for chloroquine-sensitive malaria.[3] Other uses include treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and porphyria cutanea tarda.[2] It is taken by mouth.[2] It is also being used as an experimental treatment for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroxychloroquine
Cloroquine is an older version of the drug, also FDA approved.
Do some research. Not all of your TDS sources are factual.
Priscilla: hasn’t BEEN APPROVED for COVID-19 treatment – and the “approved” version of the drug is DANGEROUS:
“ Hydroxychloroquine, in particular, might do more harm than good. The drug has a variety of side effects and can in rare cases harm the heart. Because people with heart conditions are at higher risk of severe COVID-19, that is a concern.”
(Link in full comment below)
Jay “The drug has a variety of side effects and can in rare cases harm the heart. Because people with heart conditions are at higher risk of severe COVID-19, that is a concern.”
So your in the hospital dying from COVID-19 and your doc tells you or your family that this drug is available, but has side effects. What do you tell him/her.
1. Give me the drug and we will deal with side effects if they occur?
2. I dont want to deal with side effects, let me die?
Given that choice, I dont suffer from TDS, so I think I would choose door #1
We’re in accord. Patients have the right to use drugs with dangerous side effects AFTER doctors advise them of the risks involved. All ‘approved’ drugs advertised on media have those long side-effect warnings.
Why didn’t Donnie advise of dangerous side effects when mentioning them by name?
Answer: he’s a loud-mouthed fool who has no business spouting off about specific treatments to an audience of millions. Right?
Jay “Why didn’t Donnie advise of dangerous side effects when mentioning them by name?
Answer: he’s a loud-mouthed fool who has no business spouting off about specific treatments to an audience of millions. Right?”
No that is a communication that the doctor and patient should have, not government. Why do liberals all think government should control healthcae?
Ron- you’re getting dense in the head:
I AGREE government (TRUMP!) shouldn’t be involved in touting medicines. 🙄 The IDIOT should SHUT his TRAP about those particulars. Why aren’t YOU telling him that!
That’s 5-CAP frustration with your present cuddling of Ding-Dong-Donald.
What does 5-CAP Nuclear export of RNA have to do with Trump?
Fixed
I AGREE government (FDA) shouldn’t be involved in touting medicines. 🙄 The IDIOTS should SHUT their TRAP about those particulars. Why aren’t YOU telling them that!
NOPE!!
There is no obligation to seek a doctors advice.
It is your body, and your life.
The fact that I hope you choose wisely does not give me the right to force you into anything – not even seeking a doctors advice.
Hydrocloraquine is safe enought to be available without a perscription in much o the world.
“Why didn’t Donnie advise of dangerous side effects when mentioning them by name?”
Are you back ranting about hydrocloraquine again ?
Your response is at the core of pretty much everything here and why these decisions need to be in the hands of people – not governments.
I can choose to risk heart damage for a higher probability of living.
You can decide the gain is not suffficient.
I can decide to risk an vaccine with less than perfect testing.
You can decide to gamble that you will not get Covi19.
When people are free to take risks on their own – some of them make bad decisions.
Some make decisions that turn out bad.
But some make decisions that turn out well, and all of us benefit.
The perfect is the enemy of the good.
We have treatments for Covi19 right now – not limited to Hyrdocloraqunie – there are several other promissing candidates. Those people willing to try those now, will provide the information that enables the rest of us to make a better choice in 4 weeks.
It should be self evident that the FDA approach is guaranteed to result in far more deaths – in circumstances such as these.
The FDA does not approve drugs for specific uses.
It has always been legal to use any drug that has been aproved.
Though ultimately – we should just get rid of the FDA they do more harm than good.
All drugs are dangerous.
Doesn’t matter. Doctors prescribe off-label ALL the time. And virtually every drug can be dangerous, under certain circumstances. Aspirin, Tylenol, Advil….they can all be very dangerous. Should we take them off the shelves?
Remember Retin-A? When it showed promise as a wrinkle eliminator, it began to be described off the hook. THe FDA had never tested the drug for that specific purpose. But it was tested and FDA approved, and once that happened, doctors were able to prescribe it, for any condition that they thought it could help.
Botox, same thing.
You are simply wrong about this, Jay. You are welcome to respond by calling me a Trump floozy, since you have no facts at your disposal….
As of this moment Trump has danced towards – but not quite taken steps to limit FDA interferance. It would be hard for you to be a “trump Floozy” when you are advocating for a position that many of us HOPE Trump will take.
I do not think Trump has done nearly enough to disempower the FDA and empower the free market to find answers to Covid.
“As of this moment Trump has danced towards – but not quite taken steps to limit FDA interferance.”
Please jo. Can you imagine the crap China will put in the drugs like ranitidine if there was no i oversight? Your trust in humanity verges on insanity!
I use ranitadine – the purported carcinogen that china purportedly added, is present in the food each of us consumes everyday in larger doses than ranitadine.
Regardless, just as with doctors. I do not want someone else to limit my choices by force.
I merely want their advice – I will make decisions on my own.
Including whether to use chinese ranitadine, suffer from heart burn or find an alternative source.
MY choice.
Jay, I have found out from my pharmacist friend that once the FDA has approved a drug, your doctor can use it “on label” or “off label”. So if you have an ingrown toenail and your doctor says this diarrhea drug might treat that, he can order it “off label”
So the FDA can do all the testing they want and doctors all over America can prescribe this drug and one other old drug used years ago for respiratory illness. IMO, what the FDA, which is in the pockets of the drug companies, is doing is testing of these drugs. The drug company will tweak the ingredients just slightly and say those are better. The drug company will file for a new patent and then a tablet costing a $1.00 will be $50.00 each.
Where he misspoke was making this available by prescription or states. It has been available to anyone since the 40’s.
I can buy pretty much any drug I want – from somewhere in the world and use it on label, off label or whatever.
That is how it should be.
If you want to consult a doctor – go ahead, that is probably wise.
It should not be required.
One of the problems with your slurrs is they are devoid of context. So we often do not know what you mean.
I have no idea where this reference to nigerians comes from.
If the drug you are refering to is hydrocloraquine the FDA has approved it – long ago.
While the FDA makes recommendations regarding the use of a drug, approval is primarily based on its safety – and does not restrict alternate uses.
Approved is approved.
If you are not talking Cloraquine – Trump can issue an EO requiring the FDA to expedite drug approvals
“Good god, what else are they going to blame Trump for.”
Everything. Literally everything about this disease is going to be blamed on Trump, not the Chinese communists.
It’s pathological.
He is rightly to be blamed for early on distorting the potential seriousness of the problem with false statements, snide dismissals from medical experts, and club-foot-dragging to act to provide tests and masks and equipment.
Trump and his apologizing cohorts at Fox are responsible for the excruciating slow response to it weeks ago, with their smug pompous undermining dismissal of a looming pandemic.
I love the parsing, just as I love the fox news parsing of CNN and MSNBC. You can make any comment represent any other comment you want it to look like.
The problem I have is fed, state and locals saying we are 7 days into a 14 day lockdown. We are just at the beginning. China went from the middle of Jan until mid March before cases decreased below 100 a day and they are still reporting 30-50. This could blow up over there all over again there.
We locked down around Mar 15. And cases are still increasing from contacts occurring before and after that date.
With our inability to quarantine everyone for 3-4 weeks and lock them in their houses like China, I see this going into June, maybe longer. Look at the charts for COVID–19. Compare Italy to USA. We are a week behind Italy with basically the same case growth bell curve. Yesterday we reported over 7,800 new cases. So how many did those infect. 15,000? Now that takes 2 weeks, so we are into april. Will we see new case growth at -0- over night? No. Those ,15,000 are going to infect others.
And since so many have no symptoms, like Rand Paul, but have the illness, how many are they infecting that will be symptomatic.
We are far more than a week behind Italy – Italy is about 1/5 our size.
The US has a very low deathrate per 1M in population lower than any nation in europe.
Either we are doing better, or we are not as far along.
We also have just about the lowest mortality rate – except South Korea.
Please tell me one specific thing that the “experts” are in universal agreement ?
I have cited actual experts on specific treatments – you have cited contranian experts.
BOTH are still experts. ‘
You seem to be pretty thin skined. You are not attacking Trump for failing to defer to experts – you are attacking Trump for failing to heed YOUR experts.
I do think that it will go longer, Ron, but I don’t think we can allow every business and industry to remain shut down during that period, nor do I think that we should put millions of Americans out of work for an indefinite period.
If certain segments of the population are more vulnerable to dying of this disease ~ which is obviously true~ then those people should remain quarantined and get whatever medical and social support that we can give them. For a while, grandparents won’t be able to babysit, and multigenerational families will need to be supported with a plan to reduce the risk of infection.
But the suffering and loss of life that will occur from wantonly destroying the American economy will be far greater than the virus, and will last for at least a generation.
Do we believe that China’s motives in propagandizing this pandemic are benign? Because the ChiComs stand to benefit most from the destruction of the US and European economies. And, the American press may as well be working for XiJinPing right now.
Perhaps Jay can put aside his hatred for Trump just long enough to see that TDS plays right into the hands of a regime thatwould love to see all Americans suffer, even the Trump haters…..
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/03/20/biased_press_does_chinas_bidding_on_covid-19.html
Well this is what I think is going to happen. And not any crystal ball, just my gut feeling.
There may be a slowing of infections and a leveling off in mid-May. Then life comes back, people go out, virus returns, come June /July. Its a decision eveyone is going to have to make as to what they do. I am going to say screw it, I could die at 100 or I could die tomorrow at my age, I am not going to spend it separated from grand kids, family and outdoor pleasures my remaining days.
Somewhere someone will come up with a drug or drugs to treat it, but a vaccine is questionable because this monster has already mutated twice. Its like killing flies. They have already laid 1000 eggs. never get rid of them. Drug companies will come up with a way to take three 10 cent drugs that currently exist, and with FDA’s support will combine a couple as is, tweak one other, and add it, patent the combination under some fancy name that works well in a “ask your doctor about” ad on TV and release it for sale at $25,00 a pill and it takes 2 a day for 15 days to complete treatment. And that will be produced in a Chinese drug facility because that’s what we do, let them control our supply chain.
And the left will buy the political BS from all their candidates like those that worked for Bloomie that believe their “looking out for the average worker”.crap.
https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-bloomberg-staffers-losing-health-benefits-during-pandemic-2020-3
It is highly unlikely there will be a new drug quickly.
What we will see quickly is a new use of an old drug and that will limit the price.
I guess it is OK if Cuomo says it.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2020/03/23/gov_andrew_cuomo_we_have_to_start_thinking_about_how_we_restart_the_economy.html
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/who-launches-global-megatrial-four-most-promising-coronavirus-treatments
-Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine.
“At a press conference on Friday, President Donald Trump called chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine a “game changer.” “I feel good about it,” Trump said. His remarks have led to a rush in demand for the decades-old antimalarials. (“It reminds me a little bit of the toilet paper phenomenon and everybody’s running to the store,” Caplan says.)
The WHO scientific panel designing SOLIDARITY had originally decided to leave the duo out of the trial, but had a change of heart at a meeting in Geneva on 13 March, because the drugs “received significant attention” in many countries, according to the report of a WHO working group that looked into the drugs’ potential. The widespread interested prompted “the need to examine emerging evidence to inform a decision on its potential role.”
The available data are thin. The drugs work by decreasing the acidity in endosomes, compartments inside cells that they use to ingest outside material and that some viruses can coopt to enter a cell. But the main entryway for SARS-CoV-2 is a different one, using its so-called spike protein to attach to a receptor on the surface of human cells. Studies in cell culture have suggested chloroquines have some activity against SARS-CoV-2, but the doses needed are usually high—and could cause serious toxicities.
Encouraging cell study results with chloroquines against two other viral diseases, dengue and chikungunya, didn’t pan out in people in randomized clinical trials. And nonhuman primates infected with chikungunya did worse when given chloroquine. “Researchers have tried this drug on virus after virus, and it never works out in humans. The dose needed is just too high,” says Susanne Herold, an expert on pulmonary infections at the University of Giessen.
Results from COVID-19 patients are murky. Chinese researchers who report treating more than 100 patients with chloroquine touted its benefits in a letter in BioScience, but the data underlying the claim have not been published. All in all, more than 20 COVID-19 studies in China used chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine, WHO notes, but their results have been hard to come by. “WHO is engaging with Chinese colleagues at the mission in Geneva and have received assurances of improved collaboration; however, no data has been shared regarding the chloroquine studies.”
Researchers in France have published a study in which they treated 20 COVID-19 patients with hydroxychloroquine. They concluded that the drug significantly reduced viral load in nasal swabs. But it was not a randomized controlled trial and it didn’t report clinical outcomes such as deaths. In guidance published on Friday, the U.S. Society of Critical Care Medicine said “there is insufficient evidence to issue a recommendation on the use of chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine in critically ill adults with COVID-19.”
Hydroxychloroquine, in particular, might do more harm than good. The drug has a variety of side effects and can in rare cases harm the heart. Because people with heart conditions are at higher risk of severe COVID-19, that is a concern, says David Smith, an infectious disease physician at the University of California, San Diego. “This is a warning signal, but we still need to do the trial,” he says. What’s more, a rush to use the drug for COVID-19 might make it harder for the people who need it to treat their rheumatoid arthritis or malaria.”
Fine, Jay.
There may be negative side effects. It may not work for all patients. Let the doctors decide individual treatment plans for patients. And those patients have the right to refuse off-label treatment, after hearing the pros and cons.
But, it is not only perfectly legal, but it’s perfectly ethical, for physicans to use an FDA drug off-label, if it shows promise.
All of your TDS cutting and pasting doesn’t change that.
Yes, it’s perfectly legal and perfectly ethical for physicans to use an FDA drug off-label for a disease it hasn’t been approved to treat. And a good idea to start testing patients. And to tell them the drugs haven’t yet been approved for COVID-19.
But Trump said they had been approved for immediate COVID-19 use.
And when COVID-19 soon starts cascading ominously among the confined US prison populations, ample patients will be available to test those drugs for approval. You think Manafort and Stone and Cohen will volunteer for blind studies?
“But Trump said they had been approved for immediate COVID-19 use.”
Cite.
Stone is not in prison and is unlikely to ever be.
I am pretty certain Weinstein would choose to take a risk.
Why is it that in Jay world only prisoners are free to try treatments the FDA has not approved ?
“let the doctors decide” NO!!!!
Patients decide – doctors advise.
Dave “Patients decide – doctors advise.”
NO!!!
Doctors decide best course of treatment, Patients decided yes or no. What do doctors advise on if they dont decide first how to advise?
No. Ron.
You control your own life – short of using force against another.
You may seek the advise of others or not.
You can follow it – or not.
You can even choose to give others the power to make decisions for you.
But you must choose that.
Doctors do not decide the course of treatment – they decide what they will advise.
You choose
Well you and I have a completely different definition of “decide”
I do not go to the doctor, tell him I have “X”. I want him to treat me with this procedure and drug and he advises me if it is good or not.
I go, tell him the problem, with his knowledge he “decides” the best course of treatment, “advises” me as to that course of treatment and I “decide” i decide if I want it or not. If I say not, he looks up other treatments, “Decides” on #2 and “advises” me.
And actually there is another “decide” before all that. I “decide” to go to the doctor to begin with!!!!!
Many “decides”.
Your missing the point.
There is no scenario in which the doctor has power over your life or your decisions that you do not voluntarily give him.
Most people deal with their doctors much as you – I do. My wife does not.
Before she talked to a doctor she has researched her symptoms diagnosed herself and looks to her doctor for confirmation. As well as to do the one thing that the law precludes us from doing for ourselves – perscribing our own drugs.
I have no problem with how you chose to interact with your doctor – except that MUST be a choice,
“Patients decide – doctors advise.”
Of course. I thought that was implied by my saying that patients had the right to refuse any treatment.
But, if not, yes, patients decide.
I almost appears I am nit picking, but the difference is actually important.
In the model you described – Doctors decide – and you used the word “decide”, granting patients a last minute right to refuse.
That is commonly how things take place. But it happens that way because PATIENTS DECIDE, I choose to go to a doctor when I have a problem. At every step in the process “I choose”, often – commonly that choices is to defer to the doctor, but it is ALWAYS my choice.
The doctor does not EVER decide, he recomends or advises.
I DECIDE,
even if my decision is just to go along with the doctor’s recomendations.
I have more than a right to refuse. I can stop at any time, leave if I am physically able, seek other advice – even which doctors and shamans, or none at all.
Jay, I’m not going to play your tit-for-tat TDS game. But just one response and this is not a Trump supporting site. It is one of your far left sites. And just a couple days ago.
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/chloroquine-malaria-drug-treat-coronavirus-doctors/story?id=69664561
See my link at
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/who-launches-global-megatrial-four-most-promising-coronavirus-treatments
Jay, note toward bottom of article. ” After the physician states which drugs are available at his or her hospital, the website will randomize the patient to one of the drugs available or to the local standard care for COVID-19.”
Doesnt that make you feel warm and cozy. WHO telling your doc what they can use. Are we already under “World Care 4 All” and dont know it?
Now if this works, they need to keep it a secret from everyone except docs. Dont want Trump knowing. He will rave about it and then the TDS media will have to finds all the negatives. But here are a few from two of the drugs.
Depression
Signs of liver damage, such as:
Fatigue or a general ill feeling (malaise)
Loss of appetite
Nausea
Yellow eyes or skin (jaundice)
Tenderness near the liver (the upper-right abdomen)
Pale stools
High blood sugar (hyperglycemia)
Changes in the distribution of fat on your body (such as a “buffalo hump”)
Symptoms of inflammation of the pancreas (pancreatitis), such as:
A tender or swollen abdomen
Nausea and vomiting
Fever
A rapid heart rate (tachycardia)
Rapid breathing
Any unusual or unexplained bruising or bleeding
High cholesterol or high triglycerides
Signs of an irregular heart rhythm (arrhythmia), such as:
Dizziness
Lightheadedness
Fainting
An irregular pulse
Feeling that the heart is not beating normally
Signs of an allergic reaction, such as:
A rash
Hives
Itching
Swelling of the mouth or throat
Wheezing
Difficulty breathing.
No, we dont want this promoted.
You’re a busy bee today, Ron.
I agree. Don’t tell Trump anything specific about tests in progress, the moron will under or overstate the effects.
So, Trumpsters, have we in our lifetimes experienced these many severe emergency room cases for normal flu 😷?
So what the hell does this have to do with Trump. Did we really send our military to China to infect them?
Just reminding as you’ve obviously forgotten that Trump & His Fox Pals said this was not going to be a big deal – just another flu
Of course we have.
There are still significantly more people in the US dying from the flu.
That means there are more showing up at the ER with severe flu symptoms.
The CDD estimates that Flu deaths 2019-2020 will be 500-1000 per week.
US Covid19 deaths TODATE are 585.
That is just about the same deaths in 2 months are in 1 week of flu.
We are seeing more serious flu deaths RIGHT NOW than Covid19.
So obviously your statement is false.
The current approach most countries are using to deal with Covid19 – this shutting down the economy – is not proven effective, and it might well do more harm than good.
It is actually untested.
And yet we are doing it.
We have not have competitive approach trials, we are just moving forward by force with an approach that alot of experts HOPE will work.
I have far more faith in Cloraquine.
It has proven effective in atleast 2 small studies.
Next Cloraquine is a easily produced and cheap drug, Nothing precludes us from having enough to treat malaria, arthritis and Covid.
I am glad that WHO is doing something.
But I am vigorously opposed tot he proposition that only the WHO may do something.
The HyrdroCloraquine/Zythromax approach has been tried successfully in two small studies.
Absent a better choice I have no problem with doctors going forward with it.
If I develop Covid19 – I will by hook or crook find both HydroCloraquine and Zythromax – unless something more promising emerges.
That the WHO is testing some things – great but they should not be alone.
I want 10,000 drug tests to bloom.
“Hydroxychloroquine, in particular, might do more harm than good. The drug has a variety of side effects and can in rare cases harm the heart. Because people with heart conditions are at higher risk of severe COVID-19, that is a concern, says David Smith, an infectious disease physician at the University of California, San Diego. ”
This is why patients often consult doctors – to help assess their risks and determine the best treatment for them.
I would also note that Smith logic is flawed. You do not use Hydroxycloraquine BEFORE you get Covid.
You can not get Covid from taking Hydroycloraquine if you already have covid.
It would further note that it is also possible that you could cure your Coivd and weaken your heart. But you would be alive with a weak heart rather than dead with a strong one.
Three of the top watched films on Netflix today are about devastating viral infection: Outbreak, Pandemic, Containment.
Anyone in masochistic mood going to watch any of them?
Jay, sorry can’t watch. Too cheap to pay for netflix. And besides, they have little I am interested in.
But if I had it I might watch one of those. Need to escape reality (^v^)
Netflix well worth the money!
Netflix offers a free month of service to new subscribers.
And if you sign up you can cancel at any time.
Then I could recommend some great films and documentaries to watch, like episode 2 of “Dirty Money.”
https://www.indiewire.com/2020/03/dirty-money-netflix-review-best-episodes-season-2-1202216709/
Not really a.movie person. Havent watched one all the way through in years. Last one was Hunt for Red October.
I am more into programming from BBC and Canada that I can stream through HULU
streaming shows from BBC & Canada & Spain & Japan & Russia & Sweden & BOLLYWOOD are available on Netflix… And recent tv series from major networks… commercial free of course… but it’s easy to get addicted to those binge-worthy shows… so it’s probably smart not to plunge into a bottomless pit of crime and conspiracy and medical dramas, and avoid cooking & baking shows like the plague because your supply of new cooking and baking utensils will crowd you out of the kitchen! My newest toy: easy use knife sharpener:
http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcThutMe9Zh2JA3V3W3jIc9l2aNbom31wLJJa-EgCfIqQweuw5075Fw77uE
I’ve seen Outbreak. I particularly recall the scene in the movie, where the guy coughs in the theater and you see the particles flying out of his mouth and getting breathed in by everyone else.
I’ve actually thought of that scene a lot over the past couple of weeks. But, not interested in seeing the movie again.
Never saw Pandemic or Containment. Are either of them any good?
No, Priscilla, I haven’t watched any of those – our real life situation is grim enough without adding more of the same.
Am watching fun Bollywood films like “Good NEWWZ” on Prime. On Netflix I binged on “Lucifer” which got better each season, and the Australian series “Rake,” for head shaking amusement. And of course “The Great British Baking Show’ – confined home now, it will get you back in the kitchen if don’t have an empty pantry… And if you haven’t yet watched “The Good Place” series, you might want to try that…
Ah, Cleaver Greene!
Curious? What’s Pence up lately? Didn’t Trump put him in charge of COVID-19 coordinations? Out of sight, praying?
Other than holding daily meetings with the task force, and doing daily public, televised briefings, you mean?
I guess you haven’t watched the briefings, which are excellent, informative, and positive.
But Pence is there, every single day (including Saturday and Sunday) to give a detailed update on what is going on. On TV, very much in sight.
More fun to copy and paste all of the inaccurate and negative spin on the Twit, huh?
So Jay. Please read.
https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-bloomberg-staffers-losing-health-benefits-during-pandemic-2020-3
Now a question and I will answer for myself.
Do you want a politician that lies and you know most everything he says is a lie, or do you want a politician that lies, but you never know which one is a lie?
My answer. Better the known than the unknown. Not everyone is like me thinking when a politicians mouth is moving they are lying, I don’t believe one damn thing any politician says until I see the proof that is was not a lie. But we have way too many, and more so on the left, that believe whatever a politician tells them is the truth.
now for the above, I think this is despicable. He goes out and hires these people based on a promise they will be paid and will have health insurance coverage until after the election. Then he takes his dog and pony show on the road promising America they will have health insurance if he is elected. He blows $600 million dollars, But let his fortune decrease a few bucks, and who is they one he screws? The dimwits that bought his cool-aide.
But there is one bright spot in all this. There are future politicians that worked for him. They received an invaluable lesson on how to lie, have people believe it and then screw them to the wall without any feeling of regret!
If true, Bloomberg is an untrustworthy shit-head, and it’s good that he won’t be running for President.
According to my son, who worked for him for over a year (he was a good boss, paid well, and occasionally spoke to his underlings) Bloomberg is a true elitist, with very authoritarian tendencies. He speaks of “the people” as a problem that must be solved by the government.
Well Jay said if true.
Guess we will find out. Hopefully its not a out of court settlement with confidentially agreement where he save face.
https://www.newsweek.com/mike-bloomberg-sued-laid-off-campaign-workers-who-say-they-were-promised-pay-health-insurance-1493832
Trump is president because he DOES NOT talk and act as an elitist.
Because he is NOT authoritarian.
Because he does not act as if the people are a problem that must be solved by force.
I absolutely oppose authoritarianism – in Trump or Pelosi or anyone else.
By choosing to oppose authoritarian actions when they occur, rather than opposing specific people because I have prejudged them as authoritarian.
I find that I am at odds with Trump far less frequently and over less signficant issues than his predicessors of detractors.
Who is OK with this:
He means the $500 billion Exchange Stabilization Fund, under control of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, to Aid distressed industries, including Billions to airline and cargo companies and hotels, the language drafted by Senate Republicans allows Mnuchin to withhold the names of the companies that receive federal money and how much they get for up to six months if he so decides- after the elections.
When Trump was just asked if that meant money would go to his properties he said: “ I don’t know… “just don’t know what the government assistance would be for what I have. I have hotels. Everybody knew I had hotels when I got elected. They knew I was a successful person when I got elected, so it’s one of those things.”
Didn’t he insinuate he would divest his business properties during the campaign?
When asked about the proposed provision in the relief package to allow Treasury to dole out money to companies as it sees fit, Trump says: “Look, I’ll be the oversight. I’ll be the oversight.”
“Didn’t he insinuate he would divest his business properties during the campaign?”
Actually, no. He said that he would no longer personally run his businesses, that his 2 sons would do that.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-38587628
Facts, my boy, facts.
They’re important.
Actually, Priscilla, he never stipulated what his sons ‘running his businesses’ meant. When asked if they would fully manage the business and he wouldn’t still be making important executive decisions he refused to say he was severing those management responsibilities. And in fact there isn’t any evidence he isn’t making those personal business decisions daily. He certainly continues to operate as a full time publicity agent, touting his businesses at every opportunity.
“Actually, Priscilla, he never stipulated what his sons ‘running his businesses’ meant. When asked if they would fully manage the business and he wouldn’t still be making important executive decisions he refused to say he was severing those management responsibilities.”
Correct. The constitution places few qualifications on the president. All else is up to the voters. 65m voters picked Trump over Clinton.
Clinton did not divorce herself from her other affairs are Sec. State – The State department and the Clinton Foundation became practically symbiotically intertwined, and that is depite the fact that Clinton did contract with Obama to restrict her outside entanglements.
“And in fact there isn’t any evidence he isn’t making those personal business decisions daily.”
Really ? I guess he is making plans to build Trump Tower Russia from the bathroom in the east wing. Do you honestly think that if Trump were actively engaged in his businesses that the press would be reporting it daily ?
“He certainly continues to operate as a full time publicity agent, touting his businesses at every opportunity.”
I guess he should fire the guy. Just to make you happy he should fire all the people who work in his businesses.
1) Yes he did stipulate how it would work, in a televised press conference:
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/313779-trump-to-hand-over-businesses-to-sons
2. “He certainly continues to operate as a full time publicity agent, touting his businesses at every opportunity.”
You are just making stuff up. Remember…..Facts are important.
I already commented, but here is what I said.
“Large corporations get loan. No bailout.
Large corporations can not buy back stock until loan paid off.
Large corp CEO’s pay frozen, no bonuses while loan outstanding.
Large corp, no exemptions to above made by anyone unless included in stand alone legislation passed by congress.
(Yes I am dreaming on above)
Small business, loans through local SBA’s. Based on need, could be converted to direct support payment.
All of the above should be required to maintain minimum staffing at the level on February 27th. while loans are outstanding. Small business exempted with financial requirements dictating needs to SBA after some pre defined period.
One additional item, required minimum distributions from retirement accounts should be suspended. Why require retired individuals to withdraw funds with markets down 20%- 30% from Dec 31 balances. Would have little impact on costs, a fly on an elephants ass.”
Further addressing your question. Once this is approved, Mnuchin should be out of it completely. Money given to commerce to distribute based on congressional legislation. Small business money through the SBA. If Trump resort qualify just like a Marriott, then why cause all of their employees to get laid off?
And though the chain if command, he will have oversight.
Or just kill the entire stupid mess.
Guess what – I agree with your suggestions, but in addition stipulate that all loans- amounts, recipients – be made public BEFORE money is forwarded to them, and that the money given to commerce be distributed based on bi-partisan congressional agreement….
I agree with making all loans public.
I dont agree with congressional approval for each one.The way McConnell, Shumer and Pelosi cant agree on what day it is, the money would take months to go through their hands.
I oppose this entire mess.
find my self oddly supporting democrats here – though in effect, not in intent.
I hope they prevent this from happening.
Why would you support Democrats on this? They’re not trying to stop the bill ~ they’re trying to make it a pork-laden monstrosity, serving their leftwing agenda and their special interests.
This is the problem I have with libertarians. Too ideologically driven.
Priscilla “This is the problem I have with libertarians. Too ideologically driven”
Be nice. Some libertarians are not as extreme as Dave! Each party has its extremist. Dave is just out on the tip end of the libertarian needle.
The libertarain extremism Priscilla is attacking me for is support of government gridlock.
That is NOT ideological.
Not libertarain
and not extreme.
You and Jay keep trying to debate the constraints on this lard fest.
I am not inherently opposed to putting strings on money you give away.
BUT you elide four huge problems.
1) before you can give that money away – you must steal it.
2) I have ZERO faith that the strings you warp this pork ball in will function as more than speed bump’s precluding the political class from profiting off the misery of others.
Can you name an instance ever where that has not occured ?
3) Ultimately mitigating the impact of this requires looking at each individual, and each company and deciding the exact amount of assistance if any that each needs.
That is outside the ability of government to do.
4). This distorts incentives badly. Businesses and individuals suffering financial strain seek to profit or atleast to mitigate damage. When you provide aid the incentive shifts to optimizing aid. That is not the root to a strong economy
Please note the operative passage in my remarks – “in effect not intent”.
I do not support Trump’s intentions to money bomb the economy.
I do not support Pelosi’s intentions to money bomb the economy differently.
But I am ahppy that their differences have the EFFECT of doing nothing.
Unfortunately that is unlikely to continue.
No man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session.
Mark Twain
Favoring political gridlock is not some extreme libertarian ideological position.
It is not even libertarain.
Every ideology has tried to exploit gridlock to prevent bad choices by government.
Our constitution is deliberately designed to create lots of opoprtunities for gridlock – deliberately.
OK This is the game, “Beat This TDS”
Friend sent this to me and was ranting about Trump and how he ked to this mans death.
I told him you can cure ignorance through education
The only cure for stupidity is death.
He cant understand why i cant blame Trump for this.
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/man-dies-after-ingesting-chloroquine-attempt-prevent-coronavirus-n1167166
And you can’t understand your friend’s straight forward reasoning:
3-The man who died and his wife were harmed after they ingested the chloroquine.
2-They ingested the chloroquine after their President touted the drug by name on TV as beneficial.
1-If Trump hadn’t mentioned chloroquine at that time they wouldn’t have taken it, and the man wouldn’t be dead.
Ergo: your friend drew a reasonable conclusion from the sequence of what transpired.
Listen, Jay, the guy and his wife were morons.
I feel bad that they did such a stupid thing, but they did and paid with their lives ~ or, in the wife’s case, her health.
Who the hell ingests aquarium cleaner, no matter what the ingredients list says??!!
You TDSers lose crediblity when you latch on to this kind of story, and blame it on the President of the US.
What’s next? Blaming him for not going door to door to check and make sure that everyone is washing their hands properly?
God, you too!!!
This was fish tank chemical!!! Chloroquine Phosphate. NOT Hydroxychloroquine . Two different chemicals, two different words! Two different names!
Damn is stupidity contagious in the Blue community?
According to wikipedia cloroquine phosphate IS the typical drug formulation.
Either this couple overdosed, or the aquarium cleaner is not pure enough or contains additives that are harmful.
But a more relevant point is that something that is produced for aquarium cleaned need not be in short supply.
Dave “But a more relevant point is that something that is produced for aquarium cleaned need not be in short supply.”
WRONG!!! The more relevant point is that something that is produced to clean aguariums need not be put in ones body!
I dont care if its in short supply. That is for business to decide what to produce.
” The more relevant point is that something that is produced to clean aguariums need not be put in ones body!”
There are myriads of things that are made for our pets that work perfectly well for humans.
Many people get anti-biotics cheaply without perscription by buying them from aquarium supply stores.
The pills are exactly the same pills.
If you are dying from a bacterial infection and you have amoxicillian from a bottle of “fishmox” and no ability to get anything else – do you just die ?
My guess – and unfortunately I do not have sufficient information to do more than guess, but is that this could overdosed.
That there is ZERO difference in ingredients – that the cloriquinephsphate in aquarium cleaner and that in plaguin is exactly the same – even off the same production fascilities.
I frequently use calcium carbonate for heartburn. But you can overdoes on that too.
And that is OTC.
But My point – is that if we are producing something for aquarium cleaner – we are not going to have a problem ramping up production for Covid19.
I repeat: if Trump had kept his mouth closed and didn’t mention any medicine by name, the ‘idiots’ wouldn’t have taken the similar sounding fish tank chemical.
And those Nigerians who overdosed on Hydroxychloroquine after Trump touted it, they wouldn’t have stupidly overdosed on it either.
The overriding lesion here for everyone: if you believe ANYTHING at face value Trump says you’re STUPID! Correct?
You may be correct – had Trump said nothing – the same people might have decided to drink bleach instead.
“The overriding lesion here for everyone: if you believe ANYTHING at face value Trump says you’re STUPID! Correct?”
Massive logic error.
Trump said Hydroncloroquine appears promising as a treatment.
At “Face value” – he did not say it prevents covid19. Nor did he say you should overdose on them.
If Trump said “bleach kills germs” – would taking him at face value, mean you should drink bleach to prevent covid19 ?
I am going to take a leap here.
When this began to spread and people began reading information, I remember a couple articles about the low number of cases in Africa at that time. They were trying to determine why the Africans were not impacted when they are usually one if the first to experience a disease like this. The reports identified chloroquine as a good possibility to provide protection since so many Africans use it for malaria.
Then the discussion began daily, people linked the possibility in Africa to reality in America, the panic stoked by the reporting by government and media when this began created an unhealthy response driving some to use fish tank chemicals because they were so fearful of dying from the virus.
When you begin a report that hundred millions will get, millions are expected to die, if your in the older age group you stand a good probability of dying because there is no cure. It does not make one F’ing difference what you say in the days to follow. Fear and panic already has control. And I suggest fear and panic drove these individuals to fish tank cleaner, not the presidents words.
You and my friend is using almost the exact same words in the exact same order. That tells me you are both listening to the same looney left wing news and talking heads.
I guess maybe I am expecting too much from society. I was taught by my parents that I am responsible for the decisions I make, if I make a bad decision I cant blame anyone else and I cant expect anyone to bail me out of that bad decision.
In todays society, that no longer exists. If people make a bad decision, they blame the president, their boss, their teachers, their parents, their neighbors, their wife or husband, brother, sister, cousin or friend. In the case of the Arizona couple they have two entities to blame.
God for not giving them the wisdom to comprehend fish tank cleaning chemicals is not for human consumption and the President for saying this drug might be a drug that will save lives if they get COVID-19 and not issuing a warning to not consume chemicals with an ingredient remotely associated with the drug.
Your parents should be praised for teaching you about personal responsibility.
But this is more than an opinion or wisdom to pass on.
It is a fact, Further it goes beyond even your own choices.
Obviously if you consume something in a quantity that is toxic to you – you will die.
And you have no one to blame but yourself.
But you can not live without exposing yourself to some risks.
You can reduce your likelyhood of getting covid19 – by avoiding everyone.
You can reduce your odds of getting struck by lightning.
You can reduce your odds of anything at all bad happening to you – but you end up with very little of a life left.
And even factoring every possible risk – a giant asteroid could wipe out all life on earth.
Put simply bad things can still happen that are not clearly the result of your own bad choices.
You can get the flu, be mugged, be injured in an automobile accident, be struck by lightning, be violently assaulted, or lose you business to an almost unforseable pandemic.
You are not responsible for any of those things.
But moving forward from each rests on you. Blaming others – even ones who are actually at fault, will not make you whole.
Some of use are fortunate enought to have resources, friends and help to make moving forward easier. But only you can decide to make something of your own life, to be happy, regardless of what might have happened.
You are not merely responsible for the mistakes you inflict on yourself.,
But you are ultimately the only one responsible for your personal happiness.
Even if another person did something bad to you – only you can choose to be happy again.
Dang Dave your on a roll. Twice today you agreed with Jay. And now we agree totally on this.
We need to do better. Agreeing makes for boring discussions. Guess I need to throw out some Chinese trade talk again!.
“ You and my friend is using almost the exact same words in the exact same order. ”
Ok, the secret’ s out: I am your friend… this Jay identity is just cover to mess with your mind..
😉 😉 😉
Jay, there is no substance in existance that is not toxic to humans at a high enough dose – including water and oxygen.
The argument being made is quite obviously poor and false.
If Trump says Bagel’s are good – should you go out and eat 10,000 bagels ?
Would Trump be responsible if you did ?
If Trump said Bagels were good and you chose to overdose on Bagels, would it be logical to conclude that you would not be dead if Trump had not mentioned bagels ?
You constantly make this same error – not merely with regard to Trump but regarding everything.
You imbue speech with the power of force.
If anyone says something that you do not like, you assert that remark caused any bad choices that some other person made.
The russians put a tiny number of stupid adds on Facebook – and in Jay world millions of americans changed their vote to Trump.
In Jay world ordinary people make no free choices. They are all borg drones being forced to act by outside powers.
Had Trump not mentioned Cloraquine – it is likely this person would have found a different way to commit suicide through stupidity.
Whose self-interest is paramount?
Trump’s or the nation’s?
“President Trump’s private business has shut down six of its top seven revenue-producing clubs and hotels because of restrictions meant to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, potentially depriving Trump’s company of millions of dollars in revenue.
Those closures come as Trump is considering easing restrictions on movement sooner than federal public health experts recommend, in the name of reducing the virus’s economic damage.’ WAPO
If five Trump medical advisors say don’t stop the lockdowns and five say it’s ok to lift them do the six shut down Trump properties put five of his fingers on the decision scale?
I watched the press conference yeaterday, in which Trump said that, at the end of 15 days, he’s going to re-evaluate the situation and possibly change the guidelines, so that certain businesses can re-open.
He did NOT say that he was going to do it, he said he was going to consider it. I think that that makes sense. Trump explained that the destruction of the economy would be worse than the epidemic, and it was like that the effects of a Great Depression would cause many, many deaths.
The press twisted his remarks. I’m shocked.
Here I agree and disagree. He can set all the guidelines he wants, but governors and mayors have to make the best decision for their citizens, not the feds as the last word. We had a jump of about 200% in two days in the number if cases in N.C. over the last couple days. Gov. Cooper closed schools until May 15th instead of next Monday. Its still growing here, so no national executive order should cover this issue and if he tries, all the states should take it to SCOTUS.
I totally agree, Ron.
So far, that is how he has operated.Issuing guidelines, not mandates. And he specifically cited Wyoming, Idaho, and Iowa, as states with little c-v impact as of now, so perhaps their governors would issue different orders than NY and CA.
He also said, multiple times, that he would listen to and abide by the recommendations of the CDC, FDA, and Coronavirus task force, before making a decision on updated guidelines.
That sounds like a good way to proceed. We’ll have to see how things are in 7-8 days.
“He also said, multiple times, that he would listen to and abide by the recommendations of the CDC, FDA, and Coronavirus task force, before making a decision on updated guidelines.”
Actually no, he pretty carefully and properly distinguished between listen and abide by.
There is no single person such as Faucci, or no single cliche such as the healthcare community whose decision is final.
I expect as an example that Faucci will give Trump his best MEDICAL oppinion.
But this is not just a medical decision. and other inputs must be considered.
It is rare if ever that the experts in their field should be the decision makers.
Because all decisions involve factors beyond the scope of any expert in a single field.
I expect Faucci to give his best medical advice. I do not expect that he will provide economic advice. But all decisions require more than single discipline considerations.
The same reasoning that requires letting governors and mayors decide rather than the president, is why individuals must decide rather than govenors and mayors.
Choice needs to be returned to each of us as individuals NOW! Not in 15 days.
Just to be clear – I have no problems with businesses chosing to close or to alter their operating procedures to reduce the spread of Covid19.
I have no problems with individuals choosing to work from home if they can, or to stay home and not work at all.
Ultimately we do not have a binary choice – we do not have a choice between the total destruction of the economy or death from covid19.
We each INDIVIDUALLY and PERSONALLY have THOUSANDS or small choices where we must factor our competing needs.
Do I go to the grocery store today or do I wait until tomorow ?
Do go to work or stay home ?
And each of these choices brings dozens of smaller choices – do I wear a mask ? Gloves ?
Do I shake hands ? How often do I sanitze my hands ? How far do I stay from other people ?
Every single choice has multiple risks and multiple rewards.
These can not be made by government.
Only by each of us as individuals.
And some of us are going to make stupid decisions – like overdosing on aquarium cleaner.
“Actually no, he pretty carefully and properly distinguished between listen and abide by.”
You’re right, Dave ~ that was poor wording on my part. I heard him say that he would listen to the Task Force, but that he would make the decision.
I assume that, by saying he would listen, he also meant that he would take their advice under strong consideration, and not make a rash decision that flew in the face of their recommendations. That’s what I meant by “abide by”
But, he is POTUS, and, in the words of George W. Bush, he is “the Decider.” And he will be held accountable, either way.
You and I have a tiny misunderstanding over semantics.
But we have no disagreement over what a president SHOULD do.
I am trying to be clear, because Jay and the left try to make semantic mean more than it does.
I do not want any president ever mindlessly doing what any expert in any feild advises – no matter how expert they might be.
I expert – and Trump has said they he will give significant weight to Faucci,
But Covid19 Control is NOT the only issue. We are not better off if Faucci’s recomendations bring Covid19 undercontrol and 50% of the economy dies.
Further while ANY president should weigh advice from experts in MANY fields before making decisions. in many cases, the right decisions is NOT to use force to impose a specific decision. To allow the people in the country to make the choice for themselves – and not collectively but individually.
Your son may not be able to pull off saving his business. Neither Trump nor I can make the external and unanticipated disruption caused by Covid19 go away.
But any real chance he has of survinving requires that he has the freedom to find the answer that is best for him, his business and his customers himself.
And the same is true of each and everyone of us.
I am almost 62 – I am making significantly different choices than I would if Covid19 were not an issue. But I am also finding my own personal balance between my own personal health safety and my own personal financial health.
Further I may revise those choices if the threat increases or diminishes.
My daughter is 23 – she is properly making entirely different choices. Her risk is about 1/4 what mine is.
At the same time – her behavior poses a small additional risk to me. And we are finding ways to cope with that. To find a balance or to find process that allows her more freedom, and still keeps me safe.
I am not saying everyone must make the choices I have.
I am saying that the president or the governor or the mayor can not make the choices for the rest of us. Each of us must make our own risk/reward choices for ourselves and within our families.
Dr. Faucci can not make them for us.
Nor can president Trump.
Not only should Trump not be a rubber stamp for Faucci, nor should a single area of expertise control, but ultimately even weighing all factors – there is no top down solution that should be imposed.
Release the economy, keep us all informed, and let individuals businesses and customers work out on their own their personal way of dealing with this.
“Whose self-interest is paramount?”
Good question.
Trump should not have the power to shutdown the entire economy – nor should state and local government.
We are each free. Free to make choices on our own.
Yesterday I did PCA’s on 4 properties. I had to travel accross 3 states and meet with half a dozen people to do so.
Not one of us was forced to do this. We each chose to do so, and we each chose to take a variety of precautions. Anyone of us could have opted not to do this.
If there was no Covid19 – all that would have changed is the specifics of the choices that we made. Merely driving to a project has a small but real risk of being killed or seriously injured.
Probably as great a risk as the possibility of dying from Covid19.
You are correct – Neither Trump nor governors should get to decide whether businesses open or whether people go to work. Each of us gets to make that choice for ourselves.
You cite “medical advisors” – but fail to grasp they are advisors, not commanders.
And there advice is for more than Trump – it is for all of us.
These men are briefing us daily.
EACH OF US gets to listen to what they say and choose for ourselves what we are going to do.
It is called freedom.
Some of us may make poor choices – like overdosing on Cloroquin.
We are each ultimately responsible for our own choices.
Not those who advised us.
President Perspicacious One Month Ago:
Jay, have you run out of current material?
Just reminding you Trump’s judgement has been notoriously faulty. I hope you keep that in mind when listening to him spout his ‘genius’ opinions.
“Just reminding you Trump’s judgement has been notoriously faulty. I hope you keep that in mind when listening to him spout his ‘genius’ opinions.”
It has ? evidence ?
Todate Trump has done better with the economy than Obama.
We are about to see how Trump deals with an actual crisis that is far worse than anything Obama had to.
We can compare Obama’s handling of Ebola and Swine Flu to Trump’s – to the extent that were different Trump’s has been better – But ebola is far less contageous than Covid19,
and H1N1 less deadly. Regardless, Trump has acted faster and more decisively than either Obama or Biden.
Further – you and democrats and the left constantly tell us we should be more like Europe.
The united states has 151 confirmed cases per million of population. That is lower than any country in the EU. The US has 1.9 deaths/m population – again lower than any EU country.
The US has a fatality rate of 1.26% – significantly lower than the EU.
In the event that the US is understating the number of cases more than other countries – that would mean an even lower fatality rate.
Thus far Trump’s Judgement has been notoriously better than his predecessors.
Trump could thoroghly botch this yet.
I am critical of this “stimulus.
I am critical of this shutdown.
But the final measure is not the misteps along the way – it is the end result.
I think it is arguable that Trump could have prevented this from getting into the US – atleast so long as the vectors was by airtravel.
He failed to do that – and it was his job. Likely the failure was really with the CDC – but he is still the boss.
But he has done better than nearly any other world leader.
And he has done better than anyone could have expected from Clinton or Biden.
There are other mistakes just with Covid19 Trump has made that I have been critical of.
But we have to see the outcome before the final assessment.
And ultimately – Trump does not have to outrun the bear.
All he has to do is outrun the other runners.
Ron – this one’s for you, seeing Hillary’s smiling face is sure to put you in a good mood 😁
God, are you trying to stroke me out!😁?
https://twitter.com/maggabill/status/1242491164672118785
This is a pretty good article. Food and healthcare are industries of similar care – healthcare is actually larger, even though food is inarguably more important.
Food is over regulated, but still very litely regulated compared to healthcare.
We do not talk about a “right to food” despite the fact that food is far more important, and
that every claim that healthcare is different or should be a right – applies far more strongly to food than healthcare.
Yet, we have not just the food we need but all the food we want – foods that I think we are crazy to want – but someone does. Food as a share of the household budget has dropped from 45% of our individual spending to 12% in 100 years. While we spend far more on healthcare than ever.
We do not even consider single payer food.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/03/23/food_industry_lessons_for_the_health_care_sector___142740.html
I free market economy can not meet a sudden surge in the demand for an uncommon product instantly – but when it it important it can do so faster than any other means.
We will not run out of toilet paper or hand sanitizer and we will have enough ventilators soon enough
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/24/business/ford-3m-ge-ventilators-coronavirus-duplicate-2/index.html
I think one of the things that government misses is the contribution that some of their employees may be able to make, but are never asked. I rant about government employee ineptitude, but some of that can be the employee and some of it the system they are in. I remember a state tax audit for sales tax at the hospital and every time I ask the young man if he could do something, even a small inconsequential action, he said “I will check with my supervisor” he could not make a decision at all and could not make suggestions for us that would make it easier for us and him in future audits unless cleared by supervision.
One thing that most all hospitals have is an open forum with most employees, they want employees to make suggestions and improve the service to patients. Many companies do the same, Now I wonder about union shops since that is so structured.
But one hospital had multiple units full of covid-19 patients, all on IV pumps delivering solutions and meds. All the pumps were in the patients room. Each time a nurse entered the room, new mask, gloves and sterile uniforms were required. They removed all of that before leaving the room. Somehow they had a way that allowed for a change before exiting. They were wasting supplies.
One nurse made one suggesting that reduced waste and saved their sterile wear for use when only the patient themselves needed attention. She recommended and it was immediately put into use, extra long lines going from the patient and out of the room and into the IV pumps in the corridor. They could monitor the IV, administer IV drugs from the corridor and not enter the room unless absolutely necessary.
The private sector works if everyone is involved. If the states of NY, CA, IL and others begin competing for medical supplies, then they need to ask the suppliers to create a distribution management system that will meet the needs of everyone so that CA does not end up with too many of something and NY without enough. That is not a fed job, a state job nor local government. If apple can create supply chains to meet their needs, they certainly could be part of anything to meet the medical community distribution needs. Not the supply itself, but the expertise to put something together. The only federal agency that I would even consider is the military because they have to have the expertise to make sure supplies are where they are needed by thousands in time of peace and war and then they would only be part of a larger team
Lobsters which are 350m years old have heirarchies.
That would not be so if they did not serve some purpose.
We are not equal – that is just a fact of life.
Some of us were blessed with the abilities to be professional athletes, others professional musicians, some artists, some physicists, ….
We are not equal – that is not fair, but it is life.
Businesses and governments are heirarchies, they structure people approximately based on the skills they have regarding that heirarchy.
Janitors are important – every job is important, if everyone does not do their job, failure is likely. But all roles are not equally important.
An owner, a manager, a president must not merely maximize their own personal contribution – which will always be disprortionately higher than anyone else, but they must also endeavor to maximize the contributions of those they supervise.
Sometimes that means listening to them – janitors likely know more about cleaning up, than their bosses, but sometimes it means not listening to them. It is not Dr. Faucci’s job to balance his recomendations for containing the virus against their economic impact and other considerations – that job is Trump’s.
We should not expect that the president has the economic skills of Kudlow or the medical skills of Fauci. We elected him president – the person who weighs the recomendations of various experts and decides what is past overall. that is one of the jobs of every single boss – every owner, every ceo, every mayor, every governor
The military is only good at tasks where there is a single clearly definied task and everything else is subordinate to that objective.
War is the classic example.
That is also why we like to relabel our goals as “war” – the war on hunger, the war on drugs, the war on poverty, the war on the corona virus.
In a war all resources are clearly structured to the goal of acheiving the purpose of the war.
The economy as an example would be subordinate to the goal of an actual war.
We would care about the economy – but focused on its contribution to that goal, not as a value in and of itself.
The war model is very enticing, but it onlyu has value when the objective is existensial.
If Covid19 had an R0 that would infect every human and a 100% fatality rate – it would be an existential threat – not a single person here would be arguing about protecting the economy.
Defeating Covid19 would take priority over every other aspect of human existance.
The imediate value of everything would be directly proportionate to its contribution to defeating Covid19. Art, Music, the economy would have no value – except their contribution to defeating Covid19.
But Covid19 is not an existential threat. Therefore we cannot top down fashion subordinate everything to defeating Covid19 or measure everything in relation to Covid19.
All choices outside actually existential threats, always involve competing values and objectives.
And the military is not good at that.
Say hay, John/Dave—
What happened to coronavirus denialism on the right?
A week ago 50% of Republicans weren’t worried about COVID-19.
Today the numbers of those concerned Trumpster Republicans is up to 84% (Axious.com).
Are those on the right just slow thinkers? Pollyanna optimists? Huddled masses yearning for direction from Savior Donnie?
Reminder: you were spouting that COVID-19 denialism when it was still referred to as coronavirus in ancient days, two weeks ago.
“Say hay, John/Dave—
What happened to coronavirus denialism on the right?”
You mean what happened to the spin in your mind ?
Jay, “denialism” is not a word.
What I beleive you are refering to is the many of us who do not see – even now Covid19 as an existential threat.
I offered to bet bett you several weeks ago that there will not be 7M Covi19 deaths in the US – you did not take that bet.
Are you prepared to take that bet now ?
If not – then you should not be accusing anyone of anything.
It is possible now and was then, that Covid19 will infect every man woman and child in the country.
But that remains unlikely to the point of absurdity – so to the extent this mythical “denialism” exists – it remains YOURS – you continue to think that Covid19 will be an earth shattering disaster.
I here everyday those on the left saying this is the worst pandemic since 1917 spanish Flu.
That is not outside of what is possible – but it is highly unlikely.
Covid19 is not yet as bad as the 2009 Swine Flu epidemic in any way except panic.
Further I have consistently said from the begining that what we are trying to do is unprecidented – stopping the spread of an airborne virus after it has gotten a start.
I did not promise that we would succeed – though that fight is far from over.
I can not beat Biden and Obama up much over the 2009 H1N1 because stopping that was likely not possible at the time.
Today it is possible. It appears that Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong Singapore and China have done it.
There remain innumerable possibilities for those countries that have not as of yet stopped it.
I remain certain that the end of the world is not near.
You cite polls. So how “concerned” do you think that people are that “everyone will die” ?
What are you even polling ?
I will be interested when you are polling something concrete.
Are 7M people in the US going to die from this ?
I know you do not know, and neither do I but was are the Odds ?
I think “concerned” and “odds” are pretty similar in meaning.
I am concerned about Covid19 commensurate with the probability it is going to kill me or someone I love. That remains an extremely low perobability.
It is high enough that I will wash my hands more often and avoid large gatherings.
But not concerned enough that I will spend $2T of OUR money through politicians who with certainty make sure they and their succubi get the lions share.
I am highly concerned – much more than Covid19 that you and your ilk will succeedin in spending that money to the harm of all of us.
That is FAR more likely than 7M people in the US dying.
The 1917 flu epidemic killed 50-100m people – in a population of 2B and infected about 500M or 25% of the world.
The 1958 Assian Flu killed 2m world wide an 110K in the US
We do not know the death toll of the 1977 Russian flu as almost everyone older than 23 was immune. But it spread world wide and did kill many people under 23.
Covid19 is still several orders of magnitude below the ordinary Flu in its impact.
You talk about pollyanna’s – while you continue to predict malthusian doom and gloom that has NEVER actually occured.
I have no doubt that wherever this stops, you will somehow declare victory – that you were right, that this was horrible, that Trump botched it uniquely.
But the fact is there are no consequential pollyanna’s – just people who are not so malthusian as you are.
And that wherever this stops or is stopped – it will be far short of the armageddon you preach.
You say 80% of republicans are now “concerned” whatever that means – well ONE Democratic Governor – Cuomo is now “concerned” about shutting down the economy.
I think you will find that outside the media and leftist loons than whatever level of “concern” most of us have, Ordinary sane people understand that living through this will be a phyric victory if we impoverish ourselves to do so.
The only Pollyanna I see is YOU – you are the one that has no concerns about how much all of us have already lost from the panic YOU have sewn.
You want to blame Trump because some old couple killed themselves by eating aquarium cleaner.
By that logic why aren’t the princes of panic like you responsible for the loss of everyone’s IRA ?
I beleive Jay asked for proof there was a study of Hyrdoxychloriquune and zithromax,
Here is one by the french
Results:
Hydroxychloroquine alone reduced viral loads 50% in 6 days.
Combined with aZithromax the viral load reach 0 in 5 days.
That is called CURE.
https://www.mediterranee-infection.com/hydroxychloroquine-and-azithromycin-as-a-treatment-of-covid-19/
Trump is scum bag mode once again…
I have zero problems with Trump’s tweet.
We are all happy that Romney tested negative.
We should be happy anyone tests negative.
At the same time Romney has bashed Trump much more bitterly than this
And frankly Trump’s remarks are correct so far.
Romney was a lousy presidential candidate.
Had the GOP nominated a better candidate – Obama would have lost.
And so far he has been a poor senator.
Hopefully that will improve.
“ I have zero problems with Trump’s tweet.”
And that defines you, as a vacuously oblivious dunce …
What part of the tweet is false ?
Are we unhappy that Romney did not test positive ?
Was Romney a good presidential candidate ?
He lost a winnable election, that suggests that he was a poor candidate.
Is Romney a Rhino ? Absolutely – and many of his supporters revel in that.
So you are saying I should find the tweet offensive – because it is True ?
Dave why do you react to this stuff. don’t you know Jay is just trying to twist your testicles to get a reaction?
I am having fun.
I keep telling all of you it is unwise to pretend that you know what others think and feel.
Jay gets a reaction from me because I choose to react, and I do so because I enjoy it.
I just bid on a project today that is further away than most of my projects.
The client asked why my price was higher.
I answered that for projects more than an hour away, I hire a driver.
She thought I was joking.
I hire people all the time to do things I do not enjoy.
That is win-win
I would rather post 5 replies to some inanity of Jay’s than drive myself an extra 4 hours to and from a project.
I am happy. I am happy in the midst of Covid19 – even if I am not happy about it.
I am annoyed that the Fed and the congress and Trump are doing things that by the evidence will make things worse.
But we will survive – and thrive anyway. even if not quite as well as if they had not acted stupidly.
I do not know how Trump is “feeling” about being president.
But I think the claims he is bitter, lonely, …. do not reflect what is publicly visible.
I think he is having fun as president.
Trump is the center of the universe and I think that makes him very happy.
Say what👽
Yup, Joe is all there, no cognitive issues at all.
Why am I really really worried that somehow We are going to Get Hillary 3.0 coming out of the Democratic convention ?
Ignoring Joe’s flub – the question is actually an important one.
Anyone seeking to be president needs to explain what they would do to stop Covid19 and whatever they recomend ALSO why the cost of that cure was not higher than the disease itself.
Yeah we need another president like Trump, someone who will ignore expert medical advice from multiple sources until he has to be tested himself for a virus he scoffed..
A long list of world leaders have had to be tested at this point.
The US currently has 2.7deaths per Million people – most of europe has 5 times that.
The US has a confirmed case fatality rate of 1.39% – given that we are near certain significantly under estimating total cases the actual fatality rate is much lower.
Pretty much all of europe has a higher fatality rate.
You keep fixating on words – and particularly your spun versions of words.
Actions matter, and ultimately results.
If as you say Trump has ignored the advice of experts – he has done pretty well so far.
I would note that the “experts” told him repeatedly not to restrict travel.
Are you saying that is “expert” advice that Trump should have heeded ?
I would further note – there is somewhat of a consensus of “media, and media experts” but no actual concensus of experts.
The UK has had a major tiff between two prominent medical advisory organizations – the one advocating for focusing on protecting the most vulnerable and just providing good advice to the general population and otherwise letting this run its course. The other advocating for draconian lockdowns.
I would further note that Sinapore, HK, Tiawan. Japan.,., and South Korea did NOT engage in lockdowns.
So there is no concensus among experts.
The fact is there is an enormous amount we DO NOT KNOW, and we have to figure out how to proceed anyway. under the cirmcumstance Trump has done reasonably well.
Factcheck:
1) Pandemic Response team NOT disbanded, but was moved from the NSC, by John Bolton, in an effort to streamline a department that had quadrupled in size, under Obama.
2)”One disease expert told Reuters he was sceptical that the US resident adviser would have been able to get earlier or better information to the Trump administration, given the Chinese government’s suppression of information.
“In the end, based on circumstances in China, it probably wouldn’t have had made a big difference,” Scott McNabb, who was a CDC epidemiologist for 20 years and is now a research professor at Emory University.
“The problem was how the Chinese handled it. What should have changed was the Chinese should have acknowledged it earlier and didn’t.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/axed-cdc-expert-job-china-months-outbreak-reuters-200323012037595.html
3) There have been warnings for years that a pandemic would emerge from China. We’ve already had SARS and H1N1, and most flu strains come out of China. Between their fondness for eating bats and snakes slaughtered in the wet markets, and the very crowded, often unsanitary conditions under which they live, it didn’t’t take an “intelligence expert” to predict a pandemic emerging from China.
But, just keep defending the ChiComs and blaming this on Trump. It will help a lot. 🙄 🤦♀️
This is not to say that Trump could have done certain things differently. But it’s also not to say that any Democrat was interested in anything but impeachment, during the time that the Chinese were covering up this epidemic, or when both China and the WHO were insisting that it could not be transmitted human to human….
Every single branch of government should not have its own staff for every matter that is the domain of another.
The department of Education does not need a SWAT team (though they have one).
The NSC does not need a pandemic team.
I do not have a problem with faulting some of Trump;’s and the US responses.
So long as at the same time it is noted that Trump and the US have on most issues thus far reacted better earlier than most of the world.
Trump is not personally responsible for some of the failures of CDC/NIH – We had sufficient time and knowledge to stop Covid19 at our borders. CDC/NIH FAILED to do so.
We can do a post mortem on why later – but they still failed.
I do not think Trump had anything to do with that – beyond being too trusting.
But he is the president and the Buck stops with Trump.
I honestly do not think the failure in China sprang from the top.
But it DID arise from Xi’s reversion to more socialist authoritarian government.
Xi created an atmosphere in which subordinates – right down to local levels were afraid to report the truth.
And this resulted in a colossal failure that is wreaking death on the world.
China’s problems that make it a nursery for viruses, will ultimately correct itself overtime.
I would further note that we are seeing something pretty amazing accross the world.
We have failed to contain Covid19 – but only by a narrow margin.
No one has ever attempted to stop the international spread of an airborne virus like this before.
It is near certain will will not fail next time.
We are also seeing that technological advances in medicine are ALMOST prepared to thwart things like this in the future.
It seems highly likely that we will find effective drugs in our existing arsenal to mitigate Covid19 – maybe Chloroquine – maybe something else.
We now have means the pre-evaluate each of the almost 200,000 drugs that the FDA has already approved and to select from those for fast track testing the best candidates. With a high probability of success. Again that is new.
We can produce a dozen vaccines in short order. We have to figure out how to streamline our approval process.
We are not far from StarTrek where McCoy concocts the antidote to any disease we encounter in hours or days and administers it to all of us in a hypospray.
Even though Jay has not yet received his toilet paper – he will soon enough,
This is america – there is nothing that will remain in short supply for long – no matter what, not even goods made in China,.
We will either get antibiotics, masks , gloves etc. from China or we will make them for ourselves.
Unlike Ron and Priscilla I DO NOT WANT the US Government to dictate that manufacturing should shift back to the US from China.
But that was happening to some extent before, and if government does nothing , it will do so even more in the coming year.
And/Or it will move to other countries.
China has had a really shitty year – and Xi’s government deserves it.
There will be consequences – even if no govenrment acts to impose them.
The harm will be to the chinese people,
And it will continue until they select leaders that allow greater freedom.
Poor Joe.
And poor us, if he becomes POTUS.
Poor you. You’ve shown continual judgmental decline since you voted for Disastrous Donnie. Like now once again, swallowing a tiny click-bait snip from a LONG on-air interview to come to your knee-JERK conclusion.
Did you bother to see the full interview? Or longer excerpts from it?
Here’s one; compare it with any of Trump’s live rambling interviews (non teleprompter) and say with a straight face Trump isn’t more mentally suspect than Biden.
You can disagree with Biden’s positions, but to manufacture charges of serious mental decline is as politically dishonest as your faux insistent charges about Hillary’s health in 2016.
Jay – virtually NO ONE thinks Biden is anywhere close to the top of his game.
This is not coming from the right.
When the millenial hosts of the rising think Biden is toast – you must let go of this right wing hoax nonsense.
BTW The hosts of the rising pointed out that Biden flubbed this interview DESPITE the host throwing softballs, and trying to help him out.
Expect Hillary to make a strong bid to replace Biden at the convention.
If Biden Is only in a third of his former ‘form’ that’s good enough to get him elected. And to return balance to the system. Out goes the Trumpsters, in come the Dems, and civility and a semblance of bipartisan normalcy returns.
Of course the White House will have to be fumigated, and American Indian shamans invited to chant away remaining Trump miasma. But then those multiple Federal, state and congressional investigations into Donald J. Trump’s businesses, money laundering, campaign and inauguration improprieties can resume in earnest, without interference from Trump henchmen & women, ‘retired’ from obstructing justice..
We certainly will be on the way to MAGA-fying the nation.
Most of us know that you would vote for anyone other them Trump even if they were a drooling idiot or a convicted mass murderer.
Ordinary voters actually care.
If Covid19 kills 7m people in the US – Biden might be able to get elected as a door post.
Fundimentally the race is no longer Trump vs. Biden. It is Trump vs. Covid19.
Biden is close to irrelevant.
But that does not mean i am not going to point out that it is highly likely you are wrong about Biden.
Separately – there is not a chance civility returns – democrats are not civil, period.
You are not civil.
You respond to critiques of your ideas, assertions, and ideology with slurs and insults.
The only thing New about Trump – is that a republican is doing it back.
That’s right drag shamans to the white house. Just what the left needs for advisors.
Jay – YOUR man Mueller already dug up anything that could be dug up.
His entire investigation is slowly unwinding.
You remember those actual Russians he was purportedly investigating ?
His own legal team recently dropped the case.
They plead national security – but everyone knows that is a sham, because the completed discovery – the “russians” already have whatever secrets DOJ might be trying to keep.
The real reason they dropped the case ? The Judge put Mueller’s people on notice a year ago – no funny business, If you make an allegation – you better have some evidence.
And if you continue to make allegations without evidence the judge was prepared to sanction prosecutors.
Anyway – no evidence no case.
So you spent 20M finding nothing.
You really want to start that up again ?
Go for it, you will piss off the american people, and likely get whoever is president impeached. Because we do that now over political differences – your rules goosey,
Soon enough you will face the wrath of the gander.
And you talk about political divisivness ?
So, the governor of Nevada has issued an executive order, banning doctors from prescribing hydroxychloroquine for coronavirus.
This, apparently, is because he is a Trump-hating Democrat, who wants to prevent Nevadans from snorting aquarium cleaner to guard against covid19.
Of course, this will almost certainly cause many people who believe that they have c-v to travel to out of state emergency rooms, so that, if they test positive, they will have a chance to be treated with the chloroquine/Z-pack/Zinc cocktail that has been shown to cure some people of the disease.
(And, speaking of that, isn’t there a federal Right to Try Law that this e.o. violates?)
Are you really sure this occured ?
This is beyond any version of stupid I can think of.
First we are talking about something that has a very high probability of being an effective treatment for a potentially deadly disease.
In some instances he could arguably be sentencing people to death.
You noted the right to try law.
But as a general rule of thumb states may not regulate in areas that the federal government already regulates, or when they do they are rarely permitted to exceed the constraints the federal government has.
Perscribing and approving drugs is the domain of the federal government.
This sounds like something out of “the devils advocate” where this guy is really a republican plant trying to make democrats look bad.
Dave I looked it up. That’s what has been reported. He did it E.O.
But somehow Trump will get blamed for the next death in Nevada when a doctor wabts to use it and can’t.
Hopefully someone will get an injunction and take this to SCOTUS.
No govt official should ever come between a doc and patient.
Under the right circumstance he could be prosecuted for murder.
That is part of why this is totally surprising and stupid.
I can not beleive some lawyer did not tell him how horribly bad an idea this is.
There is a clear violation CFR section 1983 – that means that he can be sued personally for damages – as can the state of Nevada.
Section 1983 is the standard law used to sue those in government for abuse of power.
An example section 1983 lawsuit i recall was against a school district for forcing a student to attend a public school with a teacher who had raped her
This seems relatively similar to that. The use of govenrment power to prevent a person from protecting themselves from harm.
I just find this hard to beleive.
Blah blah blah.
Only right wing Trump flunky news orgs are misrepresenting an emergency safeguard to protect against hoarding those drugs to prevent shortages for those now depending on them.
You Trump-Suckers immediately swallowed the click-bait, and waxed indignant in true Trump fashion.
“ CARSON CITY — Gov. Steve Sisolak has signed an emergency measure to safeguard the threatened supply of two drugs being hoarded for possible use in the treatment of COVID-19.
The governor signed the emergency regulation Tuesday on the recommendation of the state Board of Pharmacy.
The drugs, chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, are used to treat malaria, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis and are being studied by the FDA for possible use in patients with mild-to-moderate COVID-19.”
https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/local-nevada/sisolak-signs-restriction-order-for-2-drugs-1990149/
OK, in a day and age where the media on both sides twist facts and no one knows what the truth is, I jumped to conclusions. You cant trust any one of the f’in media outlets at all.
“Only right wing Trump flunky news orgs are misrepresenting an emergency safeguard to protect against hoarding those drugs to prevent shortages for those now depending on them.”
Ah, so a govenor’s potentially criminal actions are not stupid and acceptable if you are on the left – if you can manufacture a pleasant sounding rationale.
Stopping doctors from writing perscriptions has NOTHING to do with hording.
I also find it odd that you are trying to protect the limited supply of a drug that is so limitless it is used as aquarium cleaner,
AND a drug that you have repeatedly claimed has no benefit.
Jay, I was not at all joking when I questioned Priscilla as to whether this was some “fake news”.
Here you are ranting about right wing media click bait – but at the very same time VERIFYING every detail they reported, and just putting a different spin on it.
A spin I would note that is either:
A – a lie
or
B – unbeleivably stupid.
While I have zero problems with ordinary people buying chloraquine and hydroxychloraquine
without a doctors perscription, how exactly is it that you are doing anything useful by telling doctors they can not perscribe a potentially life saving drug to people who need it ?
Please Jay – I would really like to hear an actual rational justification for this action.
So far you have presented none.
Whether I like our perscription system or not – you can not “horde” a perscribed drug.
You can only get the amount of the drug that the doctor prescribed.
If your governor was actually on the upandup, His EO would have prohibited perescribing these drugs without doctor certifying that the patient likely had COVID19 – I would prefer not to require a test, because a critical near death patient should not have to wait for a test.
He also could have (still unwisely) limited prescriptions to a 14 day supply
Though frankly he should do nothing.
I can pretty much guarantee that – like the companies making toilet paper, those making chloraquine and hydroxychloraquine are ramping up production as we speak and shortage if any will be supply chain problems.
Things like in Los Angeles stores can not put enough toilet paper on the shelf to meet the purchases of consumers during the day.
No, Jay, he is not banning hoarding of the drug. He is banning doctors for prescribing it for the coronavirus epidemic.
He’s an authoritarian jerk, abusing his power, and he should be dragged into to court for violating federal law for his own politcal agenda.
https://nypost.com/2020/03/24/nevada-governor-bans-malaria-drugs-for-coronavirus-patients/
The Right-Distorted NY Post failed to mention, as the Nevada newspaper reported, the Governor was ADVISED to take the action he did by the Nevada State Board of Pharmacy. Were they recommending that for political reasons too?
So stupid, illegal unconstitutional and potentially criminal are all OK – if you are “advised” to do so ?
You do understand you are completely destroying your argument that Trump MUST do as his medical advisors recommend ?
This otta make everyone feel good! Not!
https://www.insidermonkey.com/blog/hell-is-coming-here-is-the-mathematical-proof-822824/
There are several fundimental errors in this – but there is a huge one right at the start.
His mathematical premise is wrong.
I am hard pressed to think of a single virus that has ever infected more than 25% of any population at any time ever.
The lethality of the virus does not matter, the spread rate does not matter.
That inherently means something that any virus model must take into account and this one does not – and that is that the spread rate MUST decline – it can not be a constant.
All the reasons for this are not to my knowledge known. But atleast one is well known.
As the percent of a population that is infected increases, the spread rate much decline because those people who have or have already gotten the virus are not going to get it again. that is likely the reason that the upper bounds is about 25%. When 25% of the population has gotten the virus most people who have are actively able to spread the virus are surrounded by people who currently have or previously had the virus and there is no one for them to infect.
Other factors are natural immunity. Generally viruses that have never been seen before face populations with no natural immunity. But most viruses are genetically related to viruses that have existed in the past. Covid19 is a corona virus and it is likely that SOME people who have been infected by other ocrona viruses have atleast some immunity to Covid19.
Further spread rates R0 are expressed as constants. But they are not constants.
Each individual is NOT equally susceptable to virus as the next.
We know generally that nearly all diseases spread most easily to the weak.
Most of the people killed by Covid19 – are not actually killed by Covid19, they are severely weakend by Covid19 and killed by other infections that can not typically infect healthy people.
This is why the advice of your mother to bundle up when you it is cold – lest you catch a cold.
If you stress your body – you make it more likely to catch a virus.
We already know from the Cruise ships that under nearly optimal conditions – Covid19 will not likely infect more that 20% of people. That is the most it has managed on Cruise ships which are just about perfect environments for spreading a virus – people are tightly confined, the ship has a single environmental control system for everyone. Cruise ships are almost tailor built to spread viruses.
We do not yet really know what the natural limit of the population that Covid19 can infect is – but it is likely significantly below 20% – because that is the most we saw under optimal conditions for the virus.
The other important factor is that China, Taiwan, SK, HK, Singapore and Japan have all used different approaches to containing the virus, and all appear to have succeeded.
That inherently means that the virus is RELATIVELY easy to stop from spreading.
and that multiple different vectors each reduce its spread significantly.
JHU is now showing the daily new case rates both for the world, and for each country.
Unfortunately the last 4 days numbers are always completely useless – because the incubation period averages 4 days, and the numbers from day 4 to day 10 are subject to some adjustment, so it is not possible to know that something we have hit an inflexion point until we are 4 days past it. But it is increasingly likely that China has contained this.
They have gone an entire month with no new cases most days and only rarely a few.
Chinese data may not be trustworthy, but it is hard to beleive they could hide a resurgence.
The fact that China has contained this is of critical importance – it means that near perfect control is NOT necescary to reign this is.
It is early to assert this for certain – but Italy appears to have peaked. they have 4 days of declining cases. The likelyhood of those being revised upward enough to preserve exponential growth is small.
South Korea has also definitely peaked – about 3 weeks ago,
There are a large number of countries that apear to have peaked – but they are countries with questionable reliability in terms of public health information.
And there are a large number of countries that have not “peaked” but are seeing close to the same number of new infections each day for long enough that is not likely to be bad data.
I would make another observation. Lets presume that for much of the world this is out of control – that aside from a handful of asian countries that this is going to increase exponentially to some unknown upper bound possibly as high as 25% of the population.
If that is the case then two other things are also likely true.
It is probable that China, SK, HK, JP, Singapore, Taiwan have managed a short reprieve, that they have not really contained this.
It is also likely that the actions taken by the US government – as well as any other government have been entirely ineffective.
Put simply there is no reason to shut down the entire economy – unless you expect to succeed in stopping or slowing this.
The daily new cases curve differences between the US and Europe or most of the rest of the world is noise at this point.
If nothing that has been tried works there is no reason to continue efforts that do not work.
So you post two other tweets attacking a Trump tweet that is tame in comparison to comments you make every day.
I am not surprised by the Joe Walsh response – joe Lives in your head, and Trump lives in his head.
But Goldberg is more disturbing.
Goldberg would find you disturbing.
I am not surprised by Walsh.
Goldberg should know better.
I am not going to froth at the mouth because Trump spoke the truth.
My advice for you and Joe Walsh.
I do not know whether Trump is sad and lonely – I am not inside his head.
Neither are you nor is Joe Walsh.
But from the outside Trump comes off as happy – effervescent.
Absent evidence that Walsh is omniscient – it would appear he is projecting and seeing in Trump the problems in his own life.
I’ve taken a moratorium on worrying about trumps character. I’d like to leave politics behind till we are through this. There are more serious things happening. But tweet is exceptional. What a piece of garbage our POTUS is, what an unprecedented piece of human trash. History will remember this tweet.
This so called man is incapable of doing what every other POTUS in History was capable of doing at a time like this. And all though his blinded followers will never admit it, yes that is a very bad thing, harmful, destructive.
President Pivot offering more distortions of fact instead of apologizing for HIS slow response to the pandemic.
I’ve taken a moratorium on worrying about trumps character. I’d like to leave politics behind till we are through this. There are more serious things happening. But tweet is exceptional. What a piece of garbage our POTUS is, what an unprecedented piece of human trash. History will remember this tweet.
This so called man is incapable of doing what every other POTUS in History was capable of doing at a time like this. And all though his blinded followers will never admit it, yes that is a very bad thing, harmful, destructive.
“I’ve taken a moratorium on worrying about trumps character. I’d like to leave politics behind till we are through this. There are more serious things happening.”
Followed by a long attack on Trump’s character ?
I have some issues with Trump’s character – I have no problems with this tweet.
I think it is pretty good in fact.
It makes it clear that we do not wish Covid19 on anyone – regardless of politics.
It also makes it clear that Romney is out of step with his constituents and party on politics.
It is accurate.
Romney was a poor presidential candidate. Though not projecting cognative imparement as Biden is, he otherwise ran against an incumbent offering nearly the same positions.
That is bad politics. It was bad for the GOP in 2012, it is bad for the DNC in 2020.
And Romney is a Rhino. He has pretty much staked out a position as a Rhino.
One of the reasons that Romney appeals to many “moderates” here – is because he is a Rhino.
So how is it “despicable” for Trump to label Romney accurately ?
There is nothing Trump said about Romney that is not only True, but even precisely why some people like Romney.
It is not like Trump attacked Romney over his dog ? – That would have been democrats and the mainstream media.
It is a strange world we live in when The president can speak the truth and be labeled as having bad character, but the left and the media can attack the same person much more viciously over his dog – and that is accepttable?
History is going to remember how Trump handles this crisis.
It is going to care very little about Trump’s tweets.
“This so called man is incapable of doing what every other POTUS in History was capable of doing at a time like this.”
And what would that be ?
The attention of the entire country is focused on Trump alone in a way that it has not been on any president in a long time. Trump’s handling of that will define his presidency.
Biden has become almost irrelevant at this point.
All the TDS of the past 3 years has become irrelevant.
I personally think that both the country and the media and the left are placing way way way too much importance on this moment – the absolute worst case is that we are facing the rough equivalent of a really really bad flu year. I think that STILL remains highly unlikely.
But even if True – the best chance of stopping this was blown by China in December when they were still trying to hide it.
The US’s best chance was in January – when we should have reacted AGAINST WHO RECOMENDATIONS much sooner. While Trump failed there – he was AHEAD of all other world leaders by several weeks. As a result we have more time than europe.
Subsequently – this lockdown is a mistake. One of the reasons that decisions like these are left tot he president (or should be left to the people) is because the health factors are only PART of the information necescary to make a decision.
Regardless – in my view Trump is screwing that up. I think this “stimulus” is a ludicrously stupid idea. We can not afford to waste $2T dollars – and that is all it is – waste.
But my views are not shared by most people.
According to Gallup – 60% of americans support Trump’s handling of COVID19.
Even RCP has support over 50%.
It is early and there are still government forkup’s to come – it is still government after all.
But the entirety of Trump’s presidency thus far will be judged in Nov. 2020 based on how Trump handles this.
And he has 3 things going in his favor.
“he does not need to outrun the bear, he needs to do better than other western countries”.
“Biden is making Trump look good on this everytime he speaks.”
“Obama/Biden did worse against Swine Flu”.
You keep talking about Trump followers in denial.
Who would that be ?’
Neither Priscilla, nor I, nor Ron, agree on Trump or Trump’s policies.
We debate his character and policies all the time.
We do not agree with Trump, we do not agree with each other.
We are clearly not inthrall to anyone.
What we share is that we are not suffering from TDS.
The fact that we are critical of Trump both his character and his policies DOES NOT require that we must lock step at every moment think that every single thing Trump does is a flaming pile of dog shit.
Those in denial are those for whom any words or actions by Trump are instantly presumed to be evil.
Even though as an example Ron and I disagree about Trump’s trade policies – we are BOTH capable of articulating our arguments rationally, and not getting sucked into this “orange man bad” nonsense.
Go get a tablet and a peice of paper and list every significant action of Trump since being elected – actions not bothersome tweets.
And rate each one.
If you are unable to find atleast 1/3 of the significant actions of Trump either on net good or atleast neutral – then you are “blinded unable to admit it, harmful and destructive.”
And if you do the same thing for Obama Biden and you do not find more net positives for Trump than Obama – you are unable to see the world as it is.
I think Bill Clinton should have resigned after he lied to the american public, after he lied under oath. I am glad he was impeached and I would have voted to remove him.
But he was a good president economically.
I can list many policies I disagree with – I think he was unbelievably inept at foreign policy.
But I am not so blinded by my dislike for Clinton’s character and many of his policies to be blind to the fact that he was a much better president than either Bush or Obama.
Pretty much the same is true of Trump. The differences:
While his speach is more combative, Trump’s character is not as bad as Clinton’s.
Trump is better on foreign policy, and not quite as good domestically.
Those are not huge differences.
So where is your objectivity ?
What prevents you from making a fair and honest appraisal of someone that you do not like ?
Stay At Home Update
We received our first Costco home delivery today. Overall pretty good experience, considering the alternative long lines and waits at supermarkets.
It took about 5 days to get delivery after the on-line order was placed, and about 15-20% of items we wanted were out of stock; they offered substitutions (different brand of coffee; different size of dishwasher cleanser, etc). But still no stock available for Toilet Paper and other paper goods and household disinfectants. You can monitor the site during the wait, and add or subtract items until delivery day if previous out of stock items reappear.
The free market will save your bacon – and in time allow you to wipe your ass.
“Lord God, What Are You Saying To Us?”
Free markets adapt
Strippers edition
https://www.insidehook.com/daily_brief/news-opinion/strippers-topless-food-delivery
Queen Nancy at it again. If this goes back to senate, they need to vote it down! Send it back to the house without it, but with the other issues that have some linkage to the economy damage by the virus.
Maybe Trump can sign it, repeal his first E.O. and then turn around, give her the finger and reissue new ones.
https://fedmanager.com/news/house-members-introduce-stimulus-package-with-federal-workforce-provisions
First its 800B then a Trillion, then 2 Trillion, now 2.5T.
Oh, well its only money! its not like it will ever have to be paid back.
Most of what I read was about federal workers.
Most of it was unnecescary.
Where possible I have no problems encouraging any worker to work from home.
But I am not paying them extra to do so.
They are going to save on gas, save time on commuting, save on childcare,
save on meals.
Why do they need MORE money to telecommute ?
Even if you opt to pay for their internet – that is $35/month – not $2000.
And frankly the federal workforce is NOT the issue here.
I wish we were laying some of them off – but we are NOT.
We are talking about the most protected secure workforce in the country.
This is not a moment when people who are being laid off are going to have sympathy for a bunch of washington elites with an average sallary of 6 digits. who might have to work from home.
Boo, Hoo!
Regardless, I have to thank Pelosi for AGAIN proving that democrats are tone deaf self centered idiots disconnected from the working people in the country.
How well do you think this is going to play with miners in Minesota ?
How well with all the blacks and hispanics who are getting laid off in the largest numbers right now ?
But if we delay this long enough – maybe everyone will grasp it is stupid.
My problem was the same ol’ democrat crap selling out to unions. If someone wants to join a union, fine, but if they dont, then they should be free to do that.
If I have not made that clear – I have problems with ALL OF IT.
You can not fix this with Money.
The economy recovers when production returns to normal.
There are only two impediments to that – fear legitimate or otherwise, and government shutdowns.
Why does she keep trying to dump money into the post office ?
Just sell the damn thing to Bezos and get this over with.
Besides the USPS is likely in the midst of a BOOM.
We are doing alot more business by mail.
Please just sell them to Bezos and get the government out of the business.
Our faithful postman delivered my Kaiser medications yesterday, A day after Kaiser shipped them (and he knocked at the door to alert me).
My Fed-Ex shipment of eye-wash and cleansing gauze took 5 days to reach me after being shipped from the supplier, and was tossed into my yard after dark, no notification.
A few years ago the post office was talking about dropping saturday delivery to save money.
Today your postrman delivers on Sunday – because Jeff Bezos is paying him too.
Bezos is also providing the post office with optimized delivery charts – so that the postman makes the shortest possible trip and takes the least possible time.
Amazon is currently funding about 15% of the entire USPS operating costs.
The fact that you still think of the post office as a government service is “cute”.
Just sell them off to Bezos and be done with it. They are incapable of functioning without him.
I have no axe to grind with my postman. But you have postal service today that works because of Amazon – not the US government.
The only way Bezos would ever “buy” the USPS is the government eats accrued retirement benefit costs, no requirement for 6 day delivery, union contract repealed, delivery to rural ares occur 1 day a week unless special delivery and no limit on postage cost increases.
You think democrats looking out for grannie’s daily junk mail would go for that?
Ron, you do understand Bezos has the USPS delivering on SUNDAY.
He does nto give a shit how many days a week USPS delivers – so long as one way or the other he makes money.
I beleive currently Amazon is funding 10% of the USPS.
Yes, a Bezos operated post office would be different from a government one.
But I would not fixate on the details.
If Bezos actually OWNS the USPS the purported terms of the deal do not matter all that much.
There is relatively limited ability of people in a purchase to control the actions of the buyer.
Bezos can not dictate what Congress can do with the money he pays, Congress can not dictate how Bezos runs USPS.
I am NOT saying they can not try, but that it will not work that way over the long run.
As usual, your analysis is full of distorted crap.
I’m through wasting time explaining the particulars of your nonsensical conclusion that Amazon has saved the Post Office’s ass (your saviorTrump says Amazon is ripping it off). The only way Amazon could take over the Postal Service and make a profit is to raise delivery costs for everyone, including Amazon, and refuse to honor salaries and benefits and pensions to all postal workers, past and present.
You have told us that you had past significant roles in corporate governance – and yet you are entirely clueless and incredibly rigid in your thinking.
In your limited world view strippers and strip clubs in texas would be bankrupt right now.
Instead they are delivering food with a $30 surcharge for a non-contact “dance” on your porch.
Trump is not “my savior” – I have routinely disagreed with Trump on numerous issues – including his rants at Bezos and his remarks regarding Amazon and the post office.
But there is a giant gulf between Trump is wrong on alot of issues – so is Bezos, and Trump is evil – again far outside of your ability to grasp.
USPS 2017 revenue was 69B, expenses were 72B that is a 3B shortfall.
Amazon’s USPS payments are just under 10B – or more than 10% of the USPS revenue.
Not so long ago – before Amazon’s substainial increase in USPS shipping, the USPS was routinely losing 10B/year.
They were demanding to shutdown saturday delivery.
Today they are still delivering on Saturday as well as delivering packages for Amazon on Sunday AND they are losing only about 1/3 of what they were.
If you want to attribute that to magic – fine.
Most of us grasp that is the consequence Primarily of Amazon.
And should you doubt that – FEDEX’s 2017 Revenue was 60B. UPS 2017 revenue was 65B.
Amazon could buy either or both easily, and could very well do so in the future.
“The only way Amazon could take over the Postal Service”
is any way that the federal government and Jeff Bezos agreed to.
There are absolutely no other fixed constraints.
All the stuff you address is just a part of the negotiations.
It is likely that Bezos would agree to some deal resembling what you are talking about.
Or he could just agree to buy the buildings and equipment.
It is likely the US government would not agree to that.
But there is nothing carved in stone as to what MUST be.
It is extremely common for investors to buy out failing businesses,
restructure the business, renegotiate contracts and pensions and save failing businesses.
Your new hero Mitt Romney did that constantly.
I agree 100%. As long as there is a requirement for 6 day delivery to 100% of America, they will continue to bleed money. There is no way Fed Ex, UPS or Amazon is going to cover 100% of America to deliver junk mail that legislators have said ” the elderly look forward to their daily mail”.
But their is logistical changes and communications that can occur that would lower costs, maintain critical services AND explain why their losses are so high.
For years the retirement benefits were costed based on cash flow. Whatever they paid was the cost. After the changes to structure of the service, legislation required pension and retirement accrued expenses to be recognized on the accrual basis of accounting.
Just sell the USPS to Bezos, he is keeping them afloat as it is.
Trump Hotels? Silence!
As best as I can tell Trump does not actually own and operate a hotel in NYC.
He owns a few buildings – mostly office towers,
He owns leasing rights to alot of retail, residential and office space.
He leases the trademark to the Trump name to the Trump International Hotel, but he does not own it.
Enjoy. Hope Roby check in for this one
Hahaha!
Lets try for some more agreement Jay.
RCI through FOIA requests have found that DOJ pretty much does not prosecute senior people in the DOJ and FBI. In some cases this is for 18 USC 1001 violations far more clear than Flynn’s. In others it is for crimes as serious as rape.
RCI does not identify whether these people are republicans or democrats.
Does that matter to you ? It certainly does not to me.
Regardless, can we agree to ONE STANDARD for all – democrats/republicans it does not matter.
Actually – not quite right – can we agree that those who swore to uphold the law should be prosecuted MORE vigoruously than ordinary people ?
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2020/03/25/in_dojs_upper_echelon_you_are_innocent_until_you_get_off_scot-free_122897.html
It appears there is an increasing understanding of why hydroxychloriquine might be effective.
It is reasonably well known that Zinc can reduce the severity of colds and many other viral illnesses. they are pretty certain that Zinc does that by interfering with the viruses ability to replicate. The problem with Zinc is that it does not easily pass through cell walls, so much of the Zinc in suppliments does not get into the cell to thwart the virus.
HydroxyChloroquine appears to work by increasing the passage of zinc through the cell wall, allowing it to disrupt the virus replication.
Lesson For The Stupidly Inclined: BUSINESS+GOVERNMENT Makes It Happen!
Coronavirus: Government orders 10,000 ventilators from Dyson https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52043767
Jay do you REALLY believe government had anything to do with this other than being a “customer”.
If you own a company, are you going to produce 10,000 vents if there are no buyers? In the UK, they own the health system from the buildings to the janitors. They are basically the only customer creating demand.
Please document the difference between HCA creating demand and the UK government?
Ron – yes, the government initiated the process. It says so at the top of the linked BBC news report:
“The firm, headed by British inventor Sir James Dyson, said it had designed a new type of ventilator in response to a call on behalf of the NHS.”
My god, there is no dealing with liberal ignorance. The NHS is the ONLY customer in the UK. They created demand for vents and “called”for any company that could produce them to do so and they would buy them.
Is that any different than HCA, Humana, and all the hospitals saying they need thousands of these things during the crisis and our companies are stepping up?
What dont you understand about supply and demand? Especially during a crisis. Government is not producing these things! Industry is! Their government is the CUSTOMER! Our government IS NOT A CUSTOMER! Demand creates the production and purchase!
Covid19 created the demand for respirators.
The NHS does nothing of consequence beyond incompetently transfer money from ordinary brits to the people who deliver the goods and services they need.
Does anyone honestly think that the NHS could produce and IV bag ?
Whether the UK or the US or wherever the CONSUMER is always individuals. ‘
Only people have wants and needs that must be met, Governments and businesses exist to deliver those wants and needs.
Nearly all production in the world is accomplished by business – large and small.
There are significant decreases in the efficiency of that transfer – the more heavily government is involved, but the transfer is always producer – almost always a private company to consumer – always a private person – though possibly with all kinds of intermediaries.
Demand is ALWAYS the wants and needs of the consumer – not NHS not Humana.
Dyson is not making respirators for NHS they are producing for PEOPLE, The NHS is just a middle man.
Duh!
Do you honestly think that Dyson had absolutely no thoughts about Respirators until the NHS called them up ?
Do you think that Dyson could even negotiate a deal with NHS if he did not already know that he could do it, and what it would cost ?
Regardless, in the end:
Who is going to make the Respirators ? Dyson.
And who is going to pay for them ? The british people.
Excellent analysis.
I would further note that I would pretty much guarantee that Dyson is going to produce these pretty much no matter what.
I highly doubt the government came to Dyson and asked for Respirators.
Dyson looked at this and said What can we do ?
I think there is a small amount of self interested altrusim, and a larg amount of self interest.
“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities, but of their advantages”
― Adam Smith
This is a win-win-win for Dyson.
First it is a major public relations coup – they look like the good guys.
Next they are producing something at a time when it is likely that production of vaccuums will tank – so they are keeping their factories open.
And last = even if they lose money, they are likely losing less many than if they shutdown.
Finally Jay is entirely missing the most important point:
THE FREE MARKET PROVIDES
There is zero possibility that the government can deliver respirators – in almost any time frame.
Even FDR grasped he could not fight a war on Germany and a war on capitalism.
Ron: “My god, there is no dealing with liberal ignorance. The NHS is the ONLY customer in the UK.’… Our government IS NOT A CUSTOMER! Demand creates the production and purchase!“
WTF are you blabbering about? The NHS is THE government entity that oversees free healthcare to all residents of the United Kingdom paid for from general taxation. They didn’t create the demand- the disease created the demand!
If the US had equivalent free healthcare we would have a similar agency in charge. Instead, we now have government agencies AND private hospital organizations soliciting proposals to develop medical products to fight Coronavirus.
Like the HHS. If they had contacted Dyson would you have the same nonsensical response?
“As part of the government-wide effort to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in U.S. communities, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has updated a broad agency announcement (BAA) to focus specifically on products to diagnose, prevent or treat coronavirus infections.“
https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2020/03/06/hhs-solicits-proposals-for-development-of-medical-products-for-novel-coronavirus.html
There is no such thing as “free healthcare” – you know better – such misrepresentation is deliberately misrepresenting the truth.
NHS is generally recognized as the worst healthcare delivered by any developed nation.
Further more than half of its cost is buried outside of its actual budget so it is likely one of the most expensive.
You do understand that your argument esentially is that because NHS exists, we are neither free to criticise it nor even consider whether things would be better otherwise.
The NHS is a failure – even if it is the only choice.
Further the NHS is not producing respirators, and as you note it has no responsibility for the demand.
Dyson is producing this – and the demand originates in people who are infected by Covid19 and need them.
The NHS is just a poor vehicle for transfering payment to Dyson.
Jay, you have the cart ahead of the horse.
Myriads of segmments of the market have been seeking to meet the new demands created by Covid19. They have been doing so well before government significantly thought about this.
Toilet paper makers boosted production 20% weeks ago. BioHackers worked out how to produce vaccines weeks ago. An assortment of Biolabs started on vaccines months ago.
Makers started work on opensource ventalators weeks ago.
There are myriads of drugs and drug combinations that might prove effective – these were developed years ago – and biolabs are looking for more.
If HHS and FEMA can not get their act together – GM should float a stock issue to fund this – I would buy shares – would you ?
I am sure there are gofundme campaigns for smaller projects.
If the FDA would not take them down – Ill bet that BioHackers using CRISPR could get millions in GoFundMe campaigns to develop a vaccine quickly.
The prime impediment to solving covid19 problems quickly is the Government – primarily the FDA.
While Funding would help – especially since we just decided to steal another 2T from the people, the least would could get out of it is respirators.
The BIG problem is not funding, it is the actual impediment that government and regulation provide.
If Makers come up with an opensource respirator – is the FDA going to approve ?
Will it allow patients that would otherwise die to be treated with unapproved devices or off label drugs ?
If you are the one facing near certain death – are you going to choose – no respirator at all, or one 3d printed by some guys in their garage ?
If you had a choice tomorow between a $25 vaccine for covid19 that had a 50:50 chance of working, and a near zero chance of being harmful – would you be one of 1000 people to pony up $25 ?
Should the FDA stop this ? Delay it ?
Jay this is professor RonP for economics 101.
Based on your analysis of the vent transactions in the UK you get a “F” on this homework.
For each economic transaction there needs to be a buyer and a seller.
For industriel goods, those entities are called a Customer and a producer/manufacture
In the UK, the government owns and provides care
in the USA non profits and profit organizations and docs, with others provide care
In this exercise the demand was created by a virus and the government (customer) went to the manufacturer of vents and ask them to build X number of units. That is called demand. It makes no difference what the cause, the demand created the transaction with a customer and producer.
Your way behind and missing the actual lesson.
Government is not making these – Dyson is, as is Ford, GE, and other major companies.
At the same time the maker community is busy creating open source plans for a completely open source respirator, that should be complete by today and will be produced in peices by everyone with a 3D printer who wishes to contribute.
The primary roll of government in this – get out of the way.
Your article notes that Dyson has to meet strict standards. Why ?
that is just delay. The people who need respirators are going to die without them.
A half assed respirator is better than death.
Again one of the things that all your vaunted medical experts fail to grasp.
You do not need to take 12-18 months to approve a vaccine or drug – not when thousands of lives are at stake.
This is also why people must be free.
Free to chose an unapproved ventalitor – if that is the only thing available
Free to choose a vaccine that has not been thoroughly tested.
Again governments role is to GET OUT OF THE WAY.
What role do you think the Govenrment played in this ?
Do you think the govvernment called up Dyson and said – we know you make vaccuum cleaners – could you make us some ventalators ?
Or do you think Dyson saw that there was a need for ventalators, and said “how quickly can we gear up to make thousands ?”
You keep bitching and moaning about gouging and hoarders, and shortages and entirely miss the fact that those problems are short lived, further they are the signals to the market to act. Dyson is not going to jump up and completely switch gears and produce ventalators, rather than vaccuums unless there is a large unmet need.
Pretty good summary of bill. Will be interesting if it can get through the house which is a much more ideological body. I suspect many changes by Queenie to pander to her base and give the AOC wing their due.
So how are all these reps going to get back to Washington? I sure would not be flying commercial unless there was no one else but the pilot and copilot locked in the cock pit.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2020/03/25/senate-passes-coronavirus-stimulus-bill-house-expected-to-follow-suit/?fbclid=IwAR3GVtd46AyCTXSfzTCOS-I5-k4R9Hu18Ut5ui9edwyXz7pkKYPJfUVkuQM#7c6c39214475
After a trillion plus, whats another billion. What the hell is wrong with FEMA?
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/local-business/ventec-and-gm-hoping-to-produce-up-to-20000-ventilators-a-month-amid-coronavirus-crisis/
When the left starts ranting about the shortage of ventilators – I will be reminding everyone that the Free Market was ready and able to deliver.
Everyone is pitching in:
“ Pornhub purchased and donated 50,000 surgical masks to New York-area medical professionals and emergency responders, a spokesman for the company said on Thursday. The company did not say where it obtained the masks.”
The free market delivers.
Divisive Donnie Does It Again..
Sounds fine with me. This could have been passed a week ago.
It has been delayed by over a week repeatedly by democrats.
I do not even like this – and I do nto think it should have passed at all.
If Democrats want my kudos – it would be for completely tanking this stupidity.
You can not fix a production and demand problem by money bombing people.
But given it has passed Republicans get the responsibility for it.
You can call that credit, or you can call it blame – but it belongs to Trump and Republicans – not democrats.
So, I’m going in tomorrow for a covid19 test, based on the fact that this week, I developed a slight dry cough and, today, i had a fever of 101.8 ( first fever I’ve had in years, maybe decades!)
I don’t want to go around to the grocery store, etc if I’ve got this damn virus, and I certainly don’t want to pass anything on to my kids (my son in NYC hasn’t visited since this whole thing started, because he’s afraid of infecting us!)
So, who knows if I will test positive or not? But, my point is this ~ if it weren’t for the hysteria over this, I would not have even called my doctor. I just would have taken Tylenol, and rested in bed, until my fever went away. That’s how mild my symptoms are.
If I do test positive, I’ll stay home, wear my mask and gloves around the house, and all of the other things that I’m supposed to do. Hopefully, the slight cough will go away, and I won’t have any more fevers.
If I test negative, then I’ve just gotten a cold or some other virus ~ not the covid19 virus~ and I’ll be careful to make sure that I don’t pass it along, but I won’t feel like Typhoid Mary.
In the short term, Jay, you can call me that 😉 Or Covid Mary, or something….
Ok who have you been around to get it?
By the way, make sure you check before taking Ibuprofen. I heard this does not mix well with this. Hope you have something else!
There are some very interesting simulations over on 3Blue1Brown on YouTube.
His simulations are over simplified and there is clearly some serious problem – very few infectuous diseases ever infect more than 25% of the population.
All that said what is most interesting is that ALONE there is only one measure that does not ultimately result in 100% of the population getting this – and that is quarantine, contact tracing and testing. And contact tracing and testing fail rapidly as the population increases
Every single other measure taken alone results in 100% of the population getting this.
Further most measures even in combination with other measures – still results in 100% of the population getting this.
While I think the simulations are flawed – I do not think it is likely that more than 25% of the population gets this – and I am optomistic it will be far less than that,
The simulations are valid to the extent that the accurately predict the RELATIVE effect of different measures – even in combination.
The purpose of the vast majority of the measures we are taking is NOT to reduce the number of people who get this – they have no effect on that. It is to prevent overwhelming the hospitals – because that will increase the number of deaths.
At the same time we must balance everything we do against the economy too.
Ron, I have no idea how I would have gotten it. Been doing all of the things one is supposed to do ~ including washing my hands about 1M times a day. Been spraying down all of the hard surfaces in our house with disinfectant twice daily. Skyping and FaceTiming with my kids and friends. I even had a Zoom book club meeting.
I’m definitely not one of those people who thinks that this whole thing is nonsense, although I do think that it’s fast approaching the time to open up the economy, before we pass the point of no return.
Thanks for the advice on ibuprofen ( I dd not know that it could be a bad mix with covide19)…as it happens, I am allergic to all of the NSAIDS, except aspirin, so Tylenol is my go to.
I’m definitely not very sick right now, and, as I said, if we weren’t in the midst of this shutdown, it would not even occur to me to call the doctor. But I want to find out if I’m positive, so that I can put myself in further quarantine, in my room, if necessary.
Any deliveries in the last 14 days?
Yes, actually, but we’ve had them left on the porch and opened the boxes outside, with gloves on. (I actually scored 3 boxes of gloves before they were all gone)
Let’s hope you’ve only contracted Trump fever. 🤔
My wife would be a survivalist – except she is not on the right.
Regardless, we had 3 boxes of gloves, masks for all many times over, and a lifetimes supply of toilet paper – BEFORE covid19. I can not build a house with enough storage space for her.
Don’t be a cutie pie! 🥧
I’m Truly Hoping you have a mild case of ordinary flu, Priscilla.
My daughter & son in law both had typical flu symptoms three weeks ago – but they both recovered quickly.
Thanks so much , Jay. I hope so, too. This is a bit stressful, but my symptoms are quite mild and I have zero trouble breathing
The best thing is that, when I went to get my test, the doctor gave me 2 extra surgical masks (not N95) to wear around the house. It’s been impossible to buy masks around here for weeks.
Someone told me that he heard that there were people wearing disposable baby diapers around their faces, lol. That seems a bit much, but fear will make you do some crazy sh*t. I would wear a bandanna ~ not sure about a diaper!
They were using diapers and other improvised products for face masks in the Philippines last month against volcanic ash …
Contrary reports out there pro and con for diaper protection against virus …
https://vt.co/news/woman-slammed-by-parents-after-creating-face-mask-using-diaper/
God save us from the WHO (and the FDA) – if we can not have perfection – then we must DIE.
Anything that is between your face and an infected person reduces your risk of infection.
A proper n95 mask is about 60+% effecting in protecting the WEARER from infection.
A less proper mask is less effective, If you can not get an n95 mask – should your only alternative be ZERO ?
We still suffer from poor information – thought the quality should be improving.
Atleast one source recently reported that – the surgeon General was lying when he said masks are infefective – infact they reduce your probability of getting an infection by 60%, and in conjunction with googles and gloves by over 90%.
Evenn the masks that are not n95 reduce the spread and the chance of infection – just not as well as the n95 ones do.
We all hope whatever Priscilla may have that it is mild.
But, even the flu can kill people – and has killed more people in the US this flue season that Covid19 has in the world.
https://reason.com/2020/03/26/joe-biden-tara-reade-sexual-assault-me-too-believe-women/
This is a balanced view of the difficult work that both the President and the NY Governor are trying to do. The villains in the story are the media, who have created the panic and hysteria surrounding this, and have no intention of stopping:
“Here’s the deal. New York is trying to collect more ventilators. This is not because there’s a shortage today. There isn’t. In fact, there are thousands of ventilators sitting in storage in New York, not needed right now and waiting to be called for in the future.
But according to the expert projections Governor Andrew Cuomo is getting, there won’t be as many as New York needs. The experts are saying the state will need about 40,000 ventilators about 21 days from now (now being Friday, 27 March).
President Trump, we are told, doesn’t think New York needs that many. It isn’t clear whether Trump means “ever,” or “right now,” nor has the basis for any differing assessments been examined. The expert behind the Imperial College (UK) model that has produced the worst-case estimates many authorities are going with now says the model’s predictions are significantly too high. Trump’s adviser Dr. Deborah Birx noted on Friday that current results on the ground are falling well short of the worse-case estimates the Imperial College model originally came up with. Chances are awfully good that Cuomo is still going with that worse-case thinking (which is not irresponsible, but neither is considering that maybe a poorly modeled worst case should not drive our decisions).”
https://libertyunyielding.com/2020/03/28/there-are-thousands-of-unused-ventilators-in-new-york-but-everything-is-fine-and-neither-trump-nor-cuomo-is-a-jerk/
This is a no win situation for elected officials. About two weeks ago our governor issued rules for the virus. Cases were around 100, maybe a few less, situated around our “Blue Cities” Raleigh and Charlotte. Yesterday he issued a stay at home for the whole state due to 800+ cases. Most still are those two cities, but growing elsewhere.
Had he issued that stay at home directive for 30 days 15 days ago, he would have been accused of over reacting and everything that goes with that. No way he was going to do rhat with his reelection coming up in Nov. With his total inability to even talk with GOP legislators, they would have hung him out to dry.
So 800 cases gives him cover, but now those 800 may have infected 1600 over that two weeks while they were asymptomatic and those 1600 could have infected more before the shutdown occurred.
So now people like me can skewer him for waiting to protect his reputation and acting for his best reelection efforts resulting in many more cases occurring than necessary.
Act early and its overreaction
Wait and its putting the public in unsafe conditions
Excellent article. I have said since Obama and the right wing media went bonkers with him that the media is the problem.
I have a pharmacist friend in VA that I would love to send this to, but he suffers from ATDS. Apoplectic Trump Derangement Disorder. We decided after the couple drank fish tank chemicals that if we wanted to preserve a 40 year friendship, we could not discuss anything to do with politics. He can not accept that the way this whole pandemic was presented to the public by health officials, magnified by media inflating the issues, created panic and that led two people to drink a potion they would have never put in their bidies. He regurgitated the left wing anti-Trump firestorm based on Trump saying he believed a drug could have great potential.
That is the perfect example that supports this article. And Jay responded with almost word for word what my friend said, so I know where the thinking came from. Media!
There are way too many people today that drinks the left and right Kool-Aid without ever checking a fact. This guy described the problem perfectly
I think the media is biased and irresponsible – but people are still responsible for their own choices.
I have not researched aquarium cleaner – but my suspicion is the fundimental error here was overdosing, not the basic idea.
But further – the primary responsibility of government was to stop this at the border.
That was a failure by WHO, NIH, CDC, and ultimately Trump.
I think much fo the accusations about test kits etc are crap. but we will work all that out in the post mortem – and there damn well better be one – all these agencies need reformed or killed. Stopping this was their job – and they failed.
As to the rest – I think the politicians – Trump, Cuomo, congress are Forking up by the numbers. But I am not looking to make political hay out of that and no one should either way.
They are terrified and the information they have to make choices SUCKS.
The Senate is pretty much a gigantic Bullseye for Covid19 – 100 of the people it likes to kill the most, and having one of the most powerful jobs in the world is no protection.
And the house is only slightly better – Pelosi is no spring chicken.
These people are scared, they information they are fed is very scary, the number of unknowns is enormous, and the cost of being wrong is lots of dead people.
And there is no way to be right.
But fundimentally it is not government that will get us though this.
Government is not restocking your store shelves with TP every night.
Despite the press – government will not make the ventalators and respirators that we might need, Ultimately it will not even pay for them – we will.
I am somewhat angry with Trump over his rants at GM.
They did not have to gear up to make ventilators. They deserve credit for trying to make as many as possible as fast as possible.
Trump and GM are having a hissy fit over how many GM will make how fast.
Why ? I have little doubt GM will make every ventalator it possibly can as fast as it can.
Fighting will not change the number of ventilators produced.
3M will be making 10M n95 masks in the US per week – in a week – gearing up to 50M a week as soon as possible.
Everybody is trying to figure out first how to survive, and then how to thrive through this.
An Excellent article. I have said since Obama and the right wing media went bonkers with him that the media is the problem.
I have a pharmacist friend in VA that I would love to send this to, but he suffers from ATDS. Apoplectic Trump Derangement Disorder. We decided after the couple drank fish tank chemicals that if we wanted to preserve a 40 year friendship, we could not discuss anything to do with politics. He can not accept that the way this whole pandemic was presented to the public by health officials, magnified by media inflating the issues, created panic and that led two people to drink a potion they would have never put in their bidies. He regurgitated the left wing anti-Trump firestorm based on Trump saying he believed a drug could have great potential.
That is the perfect example that supports this article. And Jay responded with almost word for word what my friend said, so I know where the thinking came from. Media!
There are way too many people today that drinks the left and right Kool-Aid without ever checking a fact. This guy described the problem perfectly
The media has been biased as long as I have been alive.
I am happier with it today than ever – today the biases are overt. We need not pretend.
The quality of information we are getting is slowly getting better. that is normal.
By the time it is over we will all know exactly what we should have know at the begining and everything we did wrong.
I really do not like Cuomo – but he is getting Kudo’s.
I think enormous numbers of mistakes are being made – but everyone is acting on crappy data, and most are doing the best they can. Further the press and the left are hyping this to the max. There are way to many people who have been freaked out over this.
Periodically it gets compared tot he 1918 flu – it is highly unlikely this will match that.
And yet through the middle of that Wilson fought a war – and really did not give a damn about the Flu.
In fact no one has ever tried anything like what we are trying to combat something that is likely at worst a very very bad flu.
Trump and Cuomo both deserve Kudos – which is not to say they did not make mistakes.
This is not something that can be done without many mistakes.
There will be a reckoning – after this is over – and one major aspect of that has to be getting the FDA out of the way. On issue after issue it has been more important to the FDA to acheive perfect safety than to kill people by default by delaying. Nor is this new – as the Reason article I linked early noted – this has been the culture of the FDA since Thalidomide.
It is a major part of what is wrong with out medical system.
Th duplicate post to Priscilla was a result of word press not posting the first one. When I changed it slightly, that one posted, but so did the first one. Word Press leave much to be desired.
I certainly hope you do not have COVID Priscilla, or that if you do it stays mild and passes without lasting damage.
As my oldest daughter is on the front lines of this at her hospital radiography department, and they do have cases and she herself has done the radiography in a tiny room on one of the positives (the man’s lungs she said where in a state of complete infection she had never seen before) without an N95 mask (so called because it prevents 95% of airborne particles from penetrating it, leaving 5% to get in) or other optimal safety measures, I can wait for the economy to reopen as long as it takes.
COVID deaths in the US doubled from 1000 to 2000 in one day from yesterday to today if I can believe what I read. I assume everyone knows the doubling exercise and can see where a daily doubling gets us in 5 days and in 10 days. That is not likely, but its why this is so dangerous and why the health aspect is more important than even reopening the approximately 25% of the economy that is on hold as of now. Yes, strong to severe, social distancing for at least another month or however long it takes is wise and ought to have no partisan political or ideological bias.
Make that doubled in two days, my error. Still a grim statistic.
Currently the US doubling rate is something slightly greater than 4 days.
The number of deaths is too small, and we have been in this for too short a period for the daily death rate to by tied to the daily new case rate,
Roby, we can only pray this is winding down in 30 days. We are not like China that defeated this (if you believe their numbers) from their beginning sometime late Dec when it was taking off to Mid Feb. around 6 weeks. This started here Jan 21 in Washington. Around mid to late Feb was when this really started with all the cases showing up in Washington and we reacted much the same as china, about 3 weeks later. Chinas first reported case was dec 31 and they locked down Wuhan Jan 23rd.
Bu their lockdown was a “lockdown” If you did not stay in your house, they welded door shut and put iron rods welded in place to keep you in.
We can’t do that. So given march 23rd was when the different states began their different “lockdowns”, do we expect this to wind down in 6 weeks like China. Our schools in N.C.are closed until the third week in May. I suspect they won’t actually reopen. That is 6 weeks from now.
I will be surprised if this is anywhere close to being defeated by Mid-May. We have too many that are ignoring this crap, wanting to be with friends, on the beach, at parties, etc. The young get the sniffles and give it to their grandparents who die.
And our FDA is still playing with their lolly and ignoring the fact so many people have been sucessfully treated with the combination of hydroxychloroquine, and azithromycin in settings all over the world. It has to be that these two drugs are so cheap the drug companies can’t make any money on them and are not pushing for them to be used.
Ron, while I beleive the draconian steps the Chinese took sped up the process of ending this in China. I do not beleive the measures they took were alone sufficient.
You note the first US case was Jan 21,
And the Wuhan lockdown was Jan 23.
It is certain that outside of Wuhan there were several orders of magnitude more cases than there were in the rest of the world on Jan 23.
Further the area in Wuhan shutdown was 35M people – and yet only 80K plus were infected in all of China.
It is highly unlikely that even using the draconian methods that China used that if 100% of the population – or even 25% of the population was highly susceptible to infection that the Chinese could have contained this.
What I would suggest – Several things that I think are missing from the mathematical models, is
A large portion of the people who get this – do not ever have symptoms.
The overwhelming majority of those are never contageous.
The evidence is increasingly leading to somewhere between twice and 10 times as many people are infected but never show symptoms.
Studies in iceland indicate than almost 4% of the population tests positive but less than 1/10 every presented with symptoms.
I do not know what you call someone who tests positive, but has no symptoms and is not infectuous.
Next some portion of the population has unknown and likely varrying immunity.
Some of us will get this if we are briefly close to a person who has it.
Others may sit next to them for hours and not get infected.
Some part of that is hygene, but some part of that is being healthy or being naturallyu resistant if not immune.
We do not know these factors yet. But it is near certain that whether we can place reliable numbers to them – they are still true.
I would further note that natural immunity – even just natural resistance is not factored in to the models you see online – but it has a tremendous impact.
If a large percent of the population is either naturally immune or even strongly naturally resistant – the curve will start out exponential – because it will initially be easy to find and spread this to highly susceptible people, but the rate will at some point slow as it is harder and harder for those who are infected to find someone highly susceptible.
I do not beleive that Zythromyecin is cheap.
I beleive it is one of few broad spectrum antibiotics that are not collosally expensive that we have not yet seen significant bacterial resistance develop yet.
That resistance is inevitable – bad news, but if we are careful, as Z resistance develops, resistance to other antibiotics will decline. We have multi-antibiotic resistant bugs, but multiple resistance is harder to maintain as the number of antibiotics increases.
Anyway, my guess is that health authorities are really unhappy about the possibility of MASSIVE use of Zythromyecine – that will pretty much guarantee the development of Z resistant bacteria.
Much of what i have read about Hydroxychloroquine suggests that it works by fascilitaing the osmosis of Zinc into our cells, and Zinc shutsdown the reproduction of many if not all viruses.
That suggests that HydrozyChloroquine conmbined with Zinc will be highly effective.
We already have plenty of evidence that Zinc is effective against ALL viruses – but the evidence of effectiveness has been inconsistent.
This is likely because Zinc can not get through cell membranes in all people easily and Hyrdoroxychloroquie aides that.
Most drugs are actually cheap.
the manufacture of pretty much all drugs is just not that complex.
This is also why we should not flip out over china.
I suspect producing beer is similar and probably more expensive than producing drugs.
The price of a drug is a factor
of the demand – no matter what a drug that most everyone can use will be cheap,
The cost to develop – all modern drugs are ridiculously expense to get through approval.
This pretty much means that small drug companies will not exist – you will only have big drug companies, and they will only make the drugs that pay off the billions it costs to get approvals.
And finally – how old the drug is – old drugs got through approvals when the process was cheaper. Often almost near zero.
I do not beleive that Aspirin has ever had to go through any countries drug approval process,
and if it did today it would likely be a black label perscription product.
Regardless all drug prices will drop if you reduce the approval costs.
But highly popular drugs more so.
” I can wait for the economy to reopen as long as it takes.”
Good for you – everyone can’t. Purportedly 3M people have lost their jobs so far this month
That is approx. $2B in lost wages ever week.
Probably half my tenants are at risk of losing their jobs. If they do – how do they pay their rent ? If they can not pay their rent – what am I and myriads of other landlords to do ?
Do I evict people who can not pay the rent ?
You have told me repeated that you are somehow morally superior, that you care about The less fortunate.
Are you going to pay their rent ?
After all you can wait as long as it lasts to re-open the economy.
I am fortunate in that my work is primarily from my home office.
But lots of people I deal with are not so fortunate.
There is a prediction of a 15% decline in GDP – that is about $2T – and that is not really measured dollars – if it was just about dollars – the Fed, and congress could make this all go away in a flurry of dollars
That is $2T of less cars, and food, and cell phones and clothes, and houses, and all the things we want and need.
Not only will the dollars not be there – but the things we would have produced will not either.
We will all be poorer – no matter how much money you dump.
And those at the bottom will be hurt the most.
And you and me – we will do just fine – for a while, locked in our homes coming out once a month to buy groceries.
But lots of other people are Forked.
“COVID deaths in the US doubled from 1000 to 2000 in one day from yesterday to today if I can believe what I read. I assume everyone knows the doubling exercise and can see where a daily doubling gets us in 5 days and in 10 days. ”
Everyone who has had middle school math knows that in 18 cycles the entire US will be dead.
Do you think that is going to happen ?
The Spanish flu which was about as lethal and had an R0 that was about the same – only infected about 25% of the country, In the US less than 1M died.
Further the Spanish flu was unique in that it was most lethal in young healthy adults.
Polio is more infectuous, can be contracted from people showing no symptoms for as long as 6 weeks, and is fatal in 2-5% of childrean and 15-30% of adults and permanently paralyzing in even more. Yet the largest US polio outbreak only involved 58,000 people.
There is an enormous amount we do not know.
It is possible that Covid19 will ultimately infect every person on the planet.
That is what your math would tell us.
That is what simplistic models tell us.
But this is highly unlikely.
We have seen Covid19 stopped in several nations.
We credit the measures those countries took to stop it – but we do not really know.
So far the daily new case rate for italy has been stable for almost two weeks.
i.e. there is no doubling of new cases.
Switzerland has been stable for about the same time period.
Ireland Norway and Austrailia also seem to have plateaued
In the cruise ships which are just about the perfect environment to spread an airborne disease no more than 20% of the population was infected.
Outside of cruise ships there is not todate any instance where this has infected more than 3% of the population. Outside of tiny islands there is no instance where it has infected 0.3% of the population. Of large nations it has never infected more than 0.15% of the population.
At is near certain that none of those numbers reflect the actual limits of Covid19.
But the likelyhood of it infecting 20% of the US popupulation is near zero,
A more probable outcome is about 0.3% of the US population
that would be abit more than 1M cases and about 13000 deaths.
The CDC estimates 38-54M cases of the flu in 2019-2020, and 24-62,000 deaths.
and almost 1m hospitalizations.
Are these numbers absolutely certain ? Nope.
But the outcome that has everyone panicked requires not only every possible human mistake, it requires the worst and least likely outcome for every single unknown.
There are myriads of mathematical models of Covid19 on Youtube and even on web sites,
I think there are interactive ones you can play with.
In fact you can play with the atributes and simulate the 1917 spanish flu or Polio or …
Nearly all those simulation eventually result in pretty much every scenario pretty much every person in the world getting infected before the disease burns out.
They predict that for Covid19, they predict that for the Flu – they predict that outcome for every infectuous disease with an R0 over 1. The only difference between a high R0 – like Small pox or measles and a low one like MOST seasonal flu’s – is how long it takes to infect everyone.
But most of us have been alive long enough to know that in the real world that is not what happens. Infectuous diseases do not infect every living creature in the planet.
Put simply there is more to modeling an infectuous disease than blunt presumptions about exponential math.
You say that is unlikely – and I agree.
But you also say that it justifies putting the economy on hold.
According to the mathematical models there is only one response that does result in 100% of the population eventually getting infected – and that is testing of 100% of the population and forcibly quarantining everyone who tests positive.
And doing so with near 100% effeciveness.
Even a 90% effective quarantine ultimately results in 100% of the population getting this.
Every other measure – social distancing, selective shutdowns, increasing the social distance, masks, gloves, ….. All result in 100% of the population getting this.
You and I might both agree that is not happening, and we would be correct,
But the difference between the mathematical models and reality is not contained in any factor that we know of.
You and I end up fighting over much the same issue all the time. It is the fact that reality is far more complex than the extent of our scientific knowledge.
Global pandemics that kill substantial portions of human(or other) life are incredibly rare – we do not litterally know why – but we know that life has existed on this planet for a couple of billion years – and it has not been completely wiped out. If the probability of some highly fatal disease hitting 100% of ANY species were high – life would not exist.
And yet it does. this is not explainable to the science we have today. But it is not magic.
But it is the difference between you and I.
I do not ever beleive malthusian predictions – for them to be true would require the laws of nature to be such that life could not have survived on this planet for several billion years.
It does not matter whether we are talking population bombs, Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming. Peak Oil or Covid19, The more catastrophic the claim is – no matter how solid you think the math and the science is, the more improbable that result is.
Why ? Look arround you – because life exists. Even horrible things that were so rare as once a milenia – would leave the earth barren and lifeless. A billion years is a million millennia.
The earth must self regulate and it must do so to a relatively narrow range, with an incredibly low probability – a near certainty of never existing that narrow range or life would not exist.
That does not mean that bad things do not happen – even things that kill lots of people.
But the more harmful this bad things are – the rarer they must be – or life would not exist.
And that is math you can actually count on – whether it is CAGW or Covid19
Just to be clear again – according to the models – closing down the economy, extensive social distancing, almost ever measure we are taking does not stop this, it merely slows it down.
It will not even alter the total number of people who are infected.
And it only alters the number of people who die – if we can reduce the height of the curve – by stretching it out, sufficiently to keep the hospitals from being overwhelmed – because if they are overwhelmed – even if they are only 10% overwhelmed – even the number of deaths are the same.
So you are clear – the mathematical effects of ALL the measures we are taking is to protect the hospitals at the expense of the economy in the hope – because it is not at all certain, that less people will die.
Reality is different – but it is different because of factors that humans do not have control over.
Ron, I am sorry to say that the chances that hydroxychloroquine is able to cure covid are not high. There this far in medical experience has been almost no luck at all curing people of viral diseases. The chances that a miracle has suddenly occurred now are next to zero. Aids virus can be held at Bay, not cured and it took a huge amount of research, by ahuge number of people over a very long period of time to accomplish that stalemate between virus and host.
This cure would be great but so far everything I read from actual biologists suggests that there is no such miracle with covid. Conservative s have fallen for hydroxychloroquine like the Dutch fell for tulips. It’s a mania.
I have read tens of thousands of scientific papers in my career. Many have been about how some molecule shows activity against some disease, cancer, altzheimers, etc. A very tiny percent of these molecule s have actually in the end been effective tools.
I will believe that hydroxychloroquine cures covid when it’s been proven by scientists not politicians and pundits.
Robby, you are making black and white something with lots of shades of grey.
I though you were the expert on biology here.
You talk about “cure” – what is “cure” and frankly what is the objective ?
Vaccines prevent catching a virus – not technically a cure – but to the person at risk what is the difference
Several – but not all studies have shown that Zinc substantially reduces the duration and symptoms of many viral diseases.
Cure ? Depends on your definition. If you take Zinc and are virus free in half the time – did you get “cured”
Contra Faucci there are numerous studies indicatng that Chloroquines – particularly in concert with Zithromycin reduce symptoms by 50%, duration by more than 50% and death by much more than 50%.
These are not the double blind controlled studies that are the gold standard of the FDA.
But the majority of science is done without double blind controlled studies – because often they are not possible.
Further Chloroquines are one of myriads of potential treatments.
You reference AIDS – well there have been several instances of CURES of aids.
We can not reliably cured aides today – emphasis on reliably, but with certainty we will be able to. Aids was a death sentence 4 decades ago. Today it is a chronic condition.
Put simply it is beyond any doubt that we have LOTS of means of treating viruses – and lots of work is being done one even more.
Hep C can be cured 95% of the time.
There are today a plethora of antivirals on the market.
Viruses are extremely simple and most antivirals are likely to effect many other viral diseases.
Are Chlorqunies alone or in combinations a silver bullet ? Probably not.
But it is near certain that something ALREADY in our virus arsenal significantly impacts Covid19.
I am for anything that has benefits greater than its risks.
I do not think Cure is likely – unless you define cure as less people dying, or shortening the duration.
But you define cure however you please.
Robby,
The medical/scientific evidence you demand – is already out there.
This is not something Rush Limbaugh cooked up in a meth lab.
Absolutely nothing yet reaches the gold standard of medical proof – though one of the things that hopefully will change as a result of this is a serious relaxation of the standard of proof,
Because when it costs $2B and years to determine if something is safe and effective – we are killing people or allowing them to suffer in the quest for perfec
If you have read thousands of papers then you know that the problem is not finding things that are effective at fighting bacteria or viruses. It is finding things that are effective and do not kill the human.
In the past we have used arsenic successfully against many diseases.
Chemo and radiation therapy work similarly.
I am guessing that you are about my age.
So lets assume you have been infected by Covid19 – you are NOT in the low risk catagory.
Your in the 5-10% chance of death catagory.
I can waive in front of you atleast 2 different medical studies where with atleast 100 critical patients, given a Chloroquine and Azythromyecine, 9% of the time the patient was free of the virus in 6 days.
So what are you going to do Robby ?
Dave, and you have proved that in your eyes it’s about getting your rent money from your tenants.
I will worry about the medical professional s and covid patients and leave you to worry about your rent money.
“Dave,and you have proved that in your eyes it’s about getting your rent money from your tenants.”
A truly hateful, low blow, Roby.
You should be ashamed of yourself. But…oh, never mind.
Your outrage is as always entirely selective and has no sting. So, yawn. If you had any ability to hear hateful words from your own side then I might feel some hurt at your lecture. Volcanoes of the most vile rhetoric have poured out of your various heros, all to be so whatted away without any affect for your admiration of them.
Dave earned my comment with his own words. You think you are taking the threat of COVID seriously in your well sheltered life opening boxes outside in gloves? Try to imagine working in the job my daughter does, a tidal wave of cases is about to hit her directly in coming weeks.
You and Dave might take my fears more seriously if your child were in that position. When the health workers have been decimated and there is less and less ability to save an increasing number of seriously ill people, then perhaps we can get off the delusional theme of getting the economy back up to normal in a few weeks. Oh you will quibble with words and say that you never said that. I don’t have the time to search your words and Dave.s words and use the exact quotes. But I’ve got the gist of your ideas.
But, oh, never mind.
Please enlighten me oh great one.
I have sinned so greatly – what a vile creature I am – providing shelter to working class and actually expecting that they pay for the service I freely provide and they freely accept.
I should follow in your footsteps – If I translated papers for money – If instead of meeting a critical need for needy people, I provided services to the corporatacry – that would serve the gods so much more, and I would not be torn with guilt nor scorned by my betters when I expected that I would be paid for what I provide.
For the great sin of meeting a need for those less well off, I must repent and allow my betters like you – who would never be so foolish as to provide needed services to people who are not so well off, for that sin I should lose what I have so that you can shower these unfortunates with what was mine, and take personal credit for doing so.
Robby,
i have made it clear to you myriads of times – do not step up on to the moral soap box and judge others, unless you are prepared to be judged yourself.
You say I do not see the world – yet I see you, and your own words condem you.
The slum lord who sells the very poor and drug addicts rat infested shelters with no water and sanitation for $100/month – provides actual value to people in need, who would be on the street in the rain and snow freezing without him.
If the christian god judges him harshly for asking to be paid for what he has given – how will that god look on you ?
What have you done for those in need ? Have you provided shelter ? Food ? Clothing ?
I do not judge you for expecting to be paid for the services you provide.
Yet you judge me harshly for doing the same – and that somehow is reasonable to you because I provide basic services for people who need them.
I work with my tenants, When they can not afford their rent, I cut them some slack, I help them find services and charity to make ends meet, Sometimes I give them oportunities to work to make up a shortfall. But everything is done freely by agreement.
No one holds a gun to my tenants heads – though you want to place a gun to mine.
There is some altruism in some of what I do for my tenants – but mostly it is in my self-interest. That is one of the many wonderful attributes of free markets – stripped of the right to use force or fraud, my benefit my selfinterest can only be acheived by delivering to others value THEY see as greater than what they give me.
The news today brings an allegation that in 1993 then Senator Biden sexually assaulted a woman.
I do not know if this is true. It was a long time ago.
So what do you say – is this woman more credible than Ms. Ford ? Whose allegation is more than ten years older, who did not even clearly allege an attempt – while the allegation against Biden is for a completed crime. Further Ford alleged that she was threatened by a drunken teen. Biden was a senator at the time.
Kavanaugh was deemed by those like you to be unfit to be on the supreme court over a flimsier allegation. Doesn’t that mean Biden is not fit to be Senator much less president?
I am not going to judge Biden on this. Nor do I see hordes of those evil right wingers spewing hatred over this like we all saw the left spray on Kavanaugh.
So you tell me that hatred is the domain of the right ?
How does the differences in treatment Kavanaugh and Biden make your case that the right is more hatefilled than the left ?
You say i am blind to the real world – in the real world far more hate comes from the left,
In the real world it is not the right that has huge double standards,
In the real world it is not the right that is hurling accusations like racist, nazi, homophobe, hateful hating hater. In the real world it is not progressive speakers who need body guards.
In the real world it is not progressives who are being censored, silenced, shouted down.
In the real world it is the left that is constantly hurling false moral accusations.
“Doesn’t that mean Biden is not fit to be Senator much less president?”
Nope, it just means Biden checks off one more qualification to be President!
Touche!
Robby,
My daughter was an EMT she stopped because she is 4’11 and could not handle dead lifting often morbidly obese patients into an ambulance – that is not meant as a judgement, it was just not safe to continue trying to do so.
Now she works at Target, she is asian, so customers look at her even more funny today than before. Target is busier than ever, she is not allowed a mask or gloves, she has to deal with customers who cough all over her, and then she has to clean toilets, and sinks – all in the midst of this panic.
She may not be as close as your daughter to the front lines of this – but she is exposed and unprotected. Further she spent the first two years of her life in a Chinese orphanage – at a time when 50% of those in the orphanages died.
If Covid19 scares you – go to amazon and watch “One Child nation”.
Over the course of the 40 years of the one child policy – something that the enlightened nations of the west advocated, more infants were killed and more late term abortions performed than the entire peopulation of the United States.
Do you think Covid19 will kill 350M people ?
My daughter would like to stay healthy – she would also like to pay for her education.
Nearly all my tenants are at high risk of being laid off as a result of this.
If they could choose between not having a job or getting Covid19 – I do not know what they would choose – though I suspect they would choose keeping the job.
Regardless, I am not seeking to take my tenants choice from them, my daughters choice, your daughters choice. You are.
i have the luxury of working from home much of the time, as does my wife, and you.
And awful lot of people don’t.
Your job or a risk of a disease – I do not care how you make that personally.
But I do care that you demand to take that choice away from millions of people.
Your daughter is free to leave her job if she deems the risk too high.
The 3M people recently laid off did not get that choice.
OK trying to copy a link. Not sure if its going to work. But what this young lady has said needs to be read by everyone possible. Hope it posts correctly.
https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2759272537442938&id=100000806566877&set=a.377359572300925&source=48
I agree with everything that she said in her second paragraph.
But the answer is trivially obvious – if this is NOT what you signed up for – QUIT.
She said she has an immunologically compromised child. I do not know what she means – but if she beleives her job as a nurse is a serious risk to her family and her child – QUIT.
My daughter is working at Target – that might not quite be a hospital right now, but she is not allowed to wear gloves or a mask, and has myriads of other complaints about how Target is unnecescarily increasing her risks.
And she comes home – to a fiance who is about a year past his 2nd bout with cancer, and two parents both in their 60’s who are generally healthy but still have manageable health complications that increase our risk beyond 60 year olds.
My wife has told her that she should consider quitting. I back her on that. But it is and should be her choice.
Her job at Target is not a career choice. She is working while at college and is working towards a psychology degree.
Further unlike myriads of others – she not only has the freedom to quit, but she has the support and resources that the impact will be minimal.
that is NOT true of myriads of other people.
Regardless, I am not actually telling anyone to quit. I am just pointing out that it is always a choice.
I may not agree with some of the nonsense spouted here or in the media.
But I do think there are potentially some permanent consequences of this.
Myriads of people – even some my age who should no better and certainly most younger spend their days – here and elsewhere ranting about the HUGE problems – the country was born in slavery, we are all racists up to our ass, Sexist, Mysoginst, everything is going to hell.
And suddenly we are facing something REAL.
While Covid19 is overhyped,
it is not the mythical systemic racism that is purportedly marinating the country.
It is real, and if you get it, there is a small chance you will die, or infect others – possibly people you know who might die.
This is not like WWII, but it is still real, and actual existential threat, even if overhyped.
And it makes the bullshit we have been fighting over appear as puny as it is.
We just spent $2T to fight a virus – that so far has killed as many people as gang murders, and not a fraction of drug overdoses.
Despite some crap games we burned $2T in a week.
Two years ago we shutdown the entire government over 1/1000 of that for a wall.
Some of you want to criticise Trump’s handling of this – fine I am game. I have different complaints than you.
But every Time We hear from the Biden Basement Bunker, I thank god that is not our president right now.
This comment from you is the perfect example of what she said in her first sentence. Thanks for documenting exactly how it is manifesting itself.
Some people run from danger. Others run toward danger. The cowards should not be criticizing the ones responding. I know of few people that dont comment about lack of tools to safely do their jobs. in fact, people are banned from working in construction zones without a hard hat.
The brave have every right to complain when they have been placed in greater danger due to circumstances out of many individuals hands.
“This comment from you is the perfect example of what she said in her first sentence. Thanks for documenting exactly how it is manifesting itself.”
Bunk. She has my admiration.
“Some people run from danger. Others run toward danger. ”
Absolutely – though who is in which catagory often varies with the specific threat.
“The cowards should not be criticizing the ones responding.”
Her choice to continue as a nurse does not give her the right or power to compel world to be different than it is.
Many of her complaints are simply that the world is not perfect. Indications at the moment are that this may not exceed the actual impact of the flu. But if I am wrong about that her complaints would be railing at the wind. We can not restructure all of society to meet the wishes of nurses in an actual once a century epidemic.
“I know of few people that dont comment about lack of tools to safely do their jobs. in fact, people are banned from working in construction zones without a hard hat.”
I have not criticised her for complaining. She can complain all she wants.
There are even things she can do about her complaints – the most effective of those is QUIT.
There are plenty in a variety of spheres making poor choices right now. But there are many more making excellent ones. I do not know why she does not have what she wants – and it is unlikely that she does either. It is possible the problem is incompetence, it is more likely it is scarcity. Scacrity will be temporary – if demand does not continue to rise exponentially.
If it does, the choice is simple – carry on, or quit.
“The brave have every right to complain when they have been placed in greater danger due to circumstances out of many individuals hands.”
Absolutely!
I asked my doctor once how he avoided the cold and flu and ….
His answer – in healthcare – you can’t. It comes with the job. Young doctors and nurses get everything. Eventually they develop stronger immune systems.
The primary purpose of all the protective gear in hospitals is to protect the patients – not the healthcare workers. Protecting them from any widespread disease is impossible.
If you can not live with that – find another job. That is not condemnation.
It is life. We are not all suited to be nurses, fire fighters, soldiers.
“Dave, and you have proved that in your eyes it’s about getting your rent money from your tenants.”
Robby – everytime I begin to think you might actually be a decent moral human being you step in it and prove otherwise.
I provide something to people that makes their lives better.
If you doubt that – go live in the woods.
I do so for my own benefit – but in seeking my own benefit – I am helping others.
That is precisely how free markets work.
GM. Ford, Dyson are making ventalators – they will profit in many ways from doing so.
At the top of the list – because good will is incredibly valuable.
Those of you who rant about greed are EVIL. You would rather that people die or have no food or no place to live than someone benefit from providing things to others.
I would further note – I may not be mother Thersa – but I strongly suspect I spend far more time helping the less fortunate than you.
You claim to work doing medical translations – good for you. You get paid to do that. Why ?
Because other people benefit – just like my tenants.
Are you going to stop doing medical translations – if you are not paid ?
Well if you stop – then someone will be deprived of the benefit of your work – just as my tenants are deprived of the benefit of their apartment if they fail to pay rent.
Of course there are differences between us – I have to actually look at the people who benefit from the service I provide. And when they can not pay for that service – I do not get to pretend that no one will be hurt if I quit working for nothing.
Further unlike you – I actually work to find ways to enable my tenants to pay their rent.
Just a few months ago I renogotiated a lease. I got a church to provide assistance to one of my tenants who was several thousand dollars behind on their rent.
I forgave a couple of thousand in rents – in return for a new lease with my tenants more secure terms, and I promised not to evict so long as with the help of the church they remain current.
Nor is this unusual. I do this all the time.
What is it that you actually do that benefits people on disability or earning minimum wage ?
One of my tenants is a dishwasher at a restaurant – it is probably the only job he can do, he is not that sharp. I expect he has been laid off and will have trouble paying rent.
So what would you do Robby ?
If All my tenants stop – and that is a real possibility here, as they are all in the class of people who are going to be hardest hit, I will be running about $4000/month short.
That rent is supposed to pay for mortgages, and power, and taxes – lots of taxes, and water and sewer and trash and pest control and ….
Do you have 48K to give me if this runs a year ?
If your clients stop paying you – you stop working for them.
You seem to think I am obligated to foot the bill for free housing.
I will be working hard to find ways to keep my tenants out of trouble or to find them assistance – and no one will pay me for that work.
What are you doing for those people who are getting Forked by this ?
As best as I can tell you are supporting the idiots who are telling them you can not work, because you might get sick.
At the same time you are assuring that there is no possibility them MIGHT get treatment – until after they are actually dead.
Please do not call yourself a moral person. Your not!
You do not know what Morality is.
“Please do not call yourself a moral person. Your not!
You do not know what Morality is.”
Funny man. Go to a mirror and make your speech. Charles Dickens long ago described your philosophy and nailed your type.
Dicken’s – oh, you have cut me to the core – or maybe you should reread dickens.
Regaldess, I will match you one Dicken’s with one Jesus Christ.
Nowhere below does it talk about when did you steal from others, nor do I recall the ghost of christmas yet to come telling Scrooge to steal from others.
I have heard you bleed rivers of empathy for the less fortunate. Have you ever done anything ? Have you even voluntarily helped someone less fortunate than you for money
?
31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
“Go to a mirror and make your speech.”
look in your soul ? Who less fortunate than you is better off for something you have done ?
Out of charity ? For Money ? I do not care.
You have a very warped sense of morality.
And so long as you keep shilling it, you can expect I will expose its hypocracy.
.
There is evidence that asymptomatic people can and do spread COVID. Have some actual science from a reputable source
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00822-x
The CDC states that people with the highest level of symptoms are the most contagious. You cannot reason backward from this to say that asymptomatic people are not shedding viral particles. There is actual evidence showing that asymptomatic people do shed virus and evidence that these people play a significant role in spreading COVID.
Betting the farm on the unproven and not well supported idea that asymptomatic people are not a significant factor in the spread of COVID is not sensible.
nature is the same idiots behind the CAGW nonsense – they are NOT a trusted source.
Further their publishing standard is peer review – not reproducable results of controlled experients.
Beyond that- your article is interesting – and about as consequential as something in Time or NYT.
That is not a criticism – except that the article is FAR from meeting the standards you claim to require.
I strongly suspect that some of the information in this article will prove true.
It is also likely that some of it will prove false.
That is part of the problem – it is also part of the problem with the FDA, CDC, WHO, NIH and you.
By the time we can actually meet the perfect safety double blind standards of the FDA for a new heartburn treatment – lots of people will be long dead.
All of us – individuals, businesses, my tenants, governments, doctors, politicians, have to make life and death judgements TODAY based on data that will not be known for certain for a year.
Further those judgements have to be made – not merely based on the medical issues, but on the myriads of different impacts this has.
Again to be clear – there is nothing wrong with your article – so long as you take it at face value.
What it is NOT is the reproducable scientific method definitive results you tell me are necescary.
This article is full of informed speculation based on alot of data that is not very high quality.
There are several papers and studies on Chlorquiines that I have linked to previously that have better data of better quality.
BTW the study of Chloroquines as antivirals predates Covid19 by a decade.
It is not some right wing fantasy, It is scientific research that has been ongoing in france for 10 years.
It could well prove eroneous – so could everything in your nature article.
“Betting the farm on the unproven and not well supported idea that asymptomatic people are not a significant factor in the spread of COVID is not sensible.”
Logic is clearly not your forte.
We do not KNOW the percentage of people who are asymptomatic – and the evidence is all over the place.
It is a reasonable surmise that it is atleast as large as the total number of symptomatic cases.
Not only do we not know the portion of symoptomatic cases, but we do not know if they are contageous.
It is not as you say sensible to assume they are not contageous, BUT it is not sensible to assume they are.
And more accurately it is complete idiocy to assume that every single unknown is going to tip towards making this WORSE.
There are dozens of unknowns at the moment. The odds are against every one of those tipping towards this fizzling. The odds are also heavily against every one of those tipping towards it wiping everyone out.
Further the probability curve is NOT a bell curve – the curve heavily tilts against malthusian disaster – otherwise life would not exist on this planet. would further note that Itally has plateu’d
They have had approximately the same number of new cases for over a week.
I would further note as we look at assorted factors – I likely agree with your article that there are large numbers of asymptomatic cases – current guestimates of the mortality rate are therefore off by a factor between 2 and 8 – which means this could be less lethal than the flu.
Are asymptomatic cases spreading this – we do not know. I have seen some evidence each. way.
BTW the argument that this is why we can not contain it is crap.
Effective containment requires quarantining those exposed – NOT those symptomatic.
And mostly that is what we have done.
If you quarantine everyone exposed – it does not matter if they are symptomatic.
Regardless there are mathematical models for every measure we have taken.
Except for agressive quarantines, there is no measure that decreases the total number of cases.
Asymptomatic spreaders has little or no effect on the outcome,
if you agressively quarantine – i.e. you quarantine everyone infected AND everyone they had contact with, and you do so to a 90% effective rate. You can kill this fairly quickly and reduce the total number of effected people by 50%
Everything else – social distancing , hand washing, shutdowns, …. stretches the process, it does not alter the total infected.
As more American’s are getting sick, and dying, this is the message of condolence he’s sending to them:
Which will elicit a “so what” and “why does this matter” from trumps apologists. But it does matter. Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, and Andrew Jackson ( to name some of the worst examples of previous presidents ) and every other previous American President would have been able to unite Americans here, rather than try to involve them in supporting or attacking the cult of personality of the heroic leader.
I am worried sleepless about my daughter, her immune system is not strong and never was but she will soldier on doing her job until this is over or she gets COVID. I don’t want to care right now about whether the POTUS is a jackass etc., I don’t want to care about what all this has to do with the political fortunes of one pitiful man. I want a unifying leader who can get us to pull together in a rational organized way. With trump as POTUS today, instead of that I am left having to still be amazed at the depths of his daily narcissism and pettiness and that of his followers.
I can only say, as always, history is watching and will judge.
Yes, I agree with your sentiments. But it is what it is…
And my hopefully optimistic thoughts go out to you and your daughter. A good friend of mine’s wife is a full-time nurse who tends to elderly patients. So far answers to my emails about her health have been positive, but it’s nerve wracking waiting for replies…
“Which will elicit a “so what” and “why does this matter” ”
It elicits that response because it is the correct response.
You can judge trump on tea leaves ouija boards, or whatever you want.
Most people will do so based on results.
The only people paying attention to this nonsense are those with TDS.
Most people know what matters.
Thank you Jay
Most americans are actually united.
Those that are not are the TDS’ers from the left who are actually hoping things go to hell.
I do not know anyone who is not hoping for the best possible outcome.
We may not agree on how to get it, and we may not agree that totalitarians such as yourself should fork over the working class, because some aging boomer is afraid of Covid19.
Cuomo and Trump – with some pushing and shoving are mostly able to work together.
You and Jay aren’t
You engage in really bad moral preening, and demand that we must fatalisticaly asume the worst, and fork over as many people in the process.
And you want to complain about Trump ?
“I don’t want to care right now about whether the POTUS is a jackass etc.,”
Then don’t – it is that simple. Let go of the TDS, Let the scales fall from your eyes.
There is a giant spectrum between James Buchanon and Abraham Lincoln.
Trump is not either.
But how are you to be taken credibly – if everyone is a nazi, no one is a nazi.
One of the things self evident From Biden’s Basement Bunker rants is that he would have handled this worse.
You want a leader that unifies the nation ? How is that to happen ? You hate half the country.
It is not Trump dividing us – it is you.
It is not our differences of oppinion that divide us – it is that you require your oppinions to be imposed by force, and will damn anyone who gets in your way.
That is not Trump, it predates 2016,
.
“I want a unifying leader who can get us to pull together in a rational organized way.”
Why ?
I could care less if we have a unifying leader.
I do not give a shit if we pull together.
I care about results and the individual freedom I am allowed in reaching them.
Reality is messy.
But the shelves get more TP each night.
3M is producing 10M N95 masks a day – soon to be 50M – in the US.
Ford and GM are producing ventalors in the US, Dyson in the UK.
People are working to solve problems – together, independently, however needs done.
We do not need a bunch of elitists to tell us how to get things done.
We do not need a “unifying leader” – which just need the idiots who think all decisions much come from the top and conform to their demands to get out of the way.
Here is a life lesson about how things work.
Everything you want and need in life reaches you without a central plan or unifying leader.
Even pencils are so complex you could not make one yourself, so complex no person knows all that needs to be known about them. and yet, without a “unifying leader”.
You have all the pencils you want – dirt cheap.
And soon you will have face masks and ventalators, and ….
Blah, blah, blah Dave. Your typical thin ad hominem no arguments. Well, you are, in your own words, “having fun.”
So, you freed me to reply like wise. It must Be fun to be in your mental state, as a self entranced child. You enjoy being a stupendous self infatuated asshole as much as trump does.
While you and trump have your “fun” many others are not having fun. But what is that to you, your own fun is your main business. Have fun dave, fun fun fun. Play all day.
And if my post does not meet your standards, cry me a river but don’t try to force your expectations on me, libertarian. I enjoyed writing it.
“Blah, blah, blah Dave. Your typical thin ad hominem no arguments.”
You choose to shift the debate to morality.
All moral debate is inherently ad hominem.
Regardless, in that moral debate I have attacked your conduct, and your judgements of others.
There is only one difference between my moral attacks on you – and yours on others.
Your inability to support your broad moral attacks on pretty much everyone you disagree with, is the proof that my moral attack on you is justified.
I have not called you a pig. I have called you immoral, hateful and intolerant.
You are immoral – because you are prepared to use force without justification to compel others to do as you demand. The same as theives, murders and rapists.
I have also called you immoral – for calling others immoral without supporting
You are not required to support factual assertions, though it strengthens your argument.
You are obligated to support claims of moral failure in others. You have not.
That alone is proof of immorality.
Calling others hateful, immoral and intolerant without proving it is hateful, immoral and intolerant.
“So, you freed me to reply like wise.”
I did not free you to do anything. You have always been free to speak your mind.
I am judging you – pretty much exactly as you are judging others.
“It must Be fun to be in your mental state, as a self entranced child. You enjoy being a stupendous self infatuated asshole as much as trump does.”
Back to omniscience.
Regardless, this immediate conflict with you has nothing to do with Trump.
It is about you. It is about your words, It is about your moral condemnation of anyone who disagrees with you.
If you choose to start a moral argument – support it – and the requirements are more rigorous than a factual debate. When you call others liars, haters, immoral, racists, …. there is no latitude for error.
“And if my post does not meet your standards, cry me a river but don’t try to force your expectations on me, libertarian. I enjoyed writing it”
You continue to equate speech you do not like with force.
I have never advocated the use of force against you – except in defense against your own use of force.
I do not seek to silence you. But I will ridicule you when you lob moral claims without support.
You complain about the bitter political divide. We are divided – because you do not justify your arguments, but seek to use force to impose them.
On some issues – I am not even at odds with you regarding what choices are best,
but I am completely at odds with your demand to take the choices of others away.
That is an actual immoral use of force.
Maybe I missed them, but so far I haven’t seen any Trump Tweets commiserating with those suffering from the virus and from his slow foot-dragging response to it. But he has time and inclination to tweet this kind of National Enquirer kind of nonsense…
Why should you be entitled to expect more from anyone else, than you do from yourself ?
Everything you loathe about Trump – is self evident in your own posts everyday.
While you are not president, you are fully prepared to dictate to us all exactly how we should “feel” about the president – in the same vulgar terms you claim he does.
Why should anyone listen to you ?
While I can find problems in Trump’s tweets – in the real world he has accomplished many things. What of you ?
“Why should you be entitled to expect more from anyone else, than you do from yourself ?”
Ha ha ha. Guffaw guffaw….Are you daft?
You believe a President should only share the moral profile of the lowest common denominator ?
I offer this quote so you can disparage the speaker and not the words.
FDR: “ The Presidency is not merely an administrative office. Thats the least of it. It is more than an engineering job, efficient or inefficient. It is pre-eminently a place of moral leadership. All our great Presidents were leaders of thought at times when certain historic ideas in the life of the nation had to be clarified.”
BYW: It’s Monday, and I forgot to tell you to GFY last week. Forgive the oversight!
“You believe a President should only share the moral profile of the lowest common denominator ?”
Where did the Lowest Common Denominator come from ?
The standard I offered was individual. A permutation on “he who is with sin, cast the first stone”. You are free to expect moral conduct from others to the extent you conduct yourself to the same standards.
If YOU swear – it is hypocrisy to criticise swearing in others.
If YOU fornicate – it is hypocrisy to condemn fornication in others.
If YOU slander – it is hypocrisy to attack slander in others.
….
You personally, are free to criticism others with regard to any of their moral failings that are not your own moral failings.
I believe that hypocrisy is perhaps the greatest sin and that if you are incapable of moral conduct and speach your opinion of the moral conduct and speach of others is not worth much.
Specifically regarding politicians – on the whole their conduct and speech is significantly worse than that of ordinary people.
With respect to FDR – he was disasterous as president. If he is your idea of a thought leader – we are headed for hell. If he is your idea of a moral leader we are headed for hell.
Even LBJ was not as immoral as FDR.
FDR has a single saving attribute – he was a great war leader. Interestingly, he grasped that to win the war he had to abandon almost the entirety of the new deal.
“BYW: It’s Monday, and I forgot to tell you to GFY last week. Forgive the oversight!”
I find it difficult to beleive that you are an adult. You behave so much like an adolescent boy.
Regardless, this is your idea of moral conduct ?
How is Biden doing in his basement bunker ?
Still many many more people dying from the flu.
“The US Sent Tons of Medical Supplies to China Even as Senators Warned of Virus Threat Here”
Trump thought he was doing the right thing.
He thought he was doing the right thing because he didn’t think the virus was a threat here.
Anyone who says he can’t Legitimately be accused of stupid thinking that led to serious health consequences (the shortages HERE, duh) is incapable of THINKING.
https://www.motherjones.com/coronavirus-updates/2020/03/the-us-sent-tons-of-medical-supplies-to-china-even-as-senators-warned-of-virus-threat-here/
Try to grasp this from the point of view of someone who is actually affected by it:
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zahrahirji/us-health-care-workers-sick-coronavirus
What is your point ?he
almost 8,000 people die in the US every day. US Covid19 deaths to date are about 4hrs of that.
I “bleed” for every person who has died whatever the reason. I nearly lost my entire family in an automobile accident a few days less than a year ago.
You make choices every day that involve small life and desk risks.
That is what freedom means.
You want to praise the nurses who are treating the sick –
During the Covid19 pandemic 400,000-780,000 americans have been hospitalized with the flu. 24,000-62,000 have died. Google “doctor dies flu” – there are several in 2020.
If you are a nurse and you are scared of dying from Covid19 – quit.
You are not obligated to continue to work.
All I ask – demand, is that YOU allow the rest of us the same choices you have.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/03/27/coronavirus-nurse-new-yorks-mount-sinai-dies-covid-19/2923983001/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/26/as-if-a-storm-hit-33-italian-health-workers-have-died-since-crisis-began
Covid19 deaths in Italy are still 1/2-1/7 the flu deaths in the US.
https://nypost.com/2020/03/28/woke-stupidity-is-spreading-as-fast-as-the-coronavirus-pandemic/
Oh, forget about it, nothing anyone can say or post will break through the wall of so called unemotional logic or whatever it is that blinds some people, particularly certain conservatives and libertarians. And you say I am “hateful” or “immoral” and should be ashamed or whatever, for saying anything about the human cost and the fear it causes.
Dave and Priscilla, You two fine moral people have proved my point in spades. Thus the howls of protest, my words are a direct hit on denial nation. Oh you will say you get it, you really get it, no denial from your quarter. No, you really do not get it. You worry about yourselves and your families, yes. There is a lot more to getting the seriousness of this than protecting your own. Protect everyone, as much as possible, screw the immediate economic cost.
” And you say I am “hateful” or “immoral” and should be ash:”amed or whatever, for saying anything about the human cost and the fear it causes.”I
Beat that straw man to death.
If you want to emote to the end of the earth over this – no one is stopping you.
I am not even criticising you.
This is not a conflict between emotion and logic
We end up at odds when:
You use your emotions as a justification for the use of force.
You attack others – and particularly when you make false moral judgements of them for disagreeing with your efforts to views by force.
You justify hate and intolerance of others with vague and nebulous and usually rediculous claims of hate and intolerance by them.
You want to attack Bull Conner as a racist – fine, no one is going to piss on you.
You level claims of racism, sexism, homophobia, …. at everyone to the right of Sanders – and you are going to get called out for hate and intolerance.
It is extremely easy to avoid moral condemnation by me – do not pass moral judgement on everyone who does not agree with you – especially if you can not support either the factual or moral argument.
“You two fine moral people have proved my point in spades.”
I have been careful to make any claims about my own morality. I am attacking yours.
“Thus the howls of protest, my words are a direct hit on denial nation.”
So many fallacies.
Argue your point whatever it is.
“Oh you will say you get it, you really get it, no denial from your quarter. No, you really do not get it.”
Do you have a clue what you are talking about ?
At the very least – quit telling me what I am going to say or think.
“You worry about yourselves and your families, yes. There is a lot more to getting the seriousness of this than protecting your own. Protect everyone, as much as possible, screw the immediate economic cost.”
That is not your choice to make for others.
And that is the point.
You are free to make choices for yourself.
You are free to make recomendations to others.
You are not free to impose your choices on others by force
I am sufficiently well off and oufficiently high risk that I and my family are making the choices that you would likely recomend.
Further I am fortunate that I can do my work from home – the impact of economic sutdown on me is minimal.
But I know LOTS of people who are not sufficiently well off and much lower risk.
You demand that EVERYONE must make choices exactly as you do.
One size does not fit all. Everyone is not in my circumstances or yours.
Today I was asked why I was so nonchalant about Trump and was so much more vocal about Obama. i took some time to react because I did not know at first.
But the I began thinking about my career at one healthcare system. I remembered the close to 400 board meeting with “civic leaders” that was the “good ol’ boyz” network that controlled the city and part of the county the healthcare system was located.
I remembered their actions and after maybe a year I had to begin ignoring what they said and only judge what decisions they made for the system. For instance, we were having human resource issues to the point some unionization activities were occurring in the early 90’s. A couple board members made comments at the meeting, “CEO, you need a gimmick. Tell them what they want to hear and then follow up later with whats best for the system. Figure out the gimmick that will keep them happy”. So with these leaders I decided if I wanted to keep working there, I needed to ignore stupidity and judge results. As for the “gimmick”, it worked out, the board passed changes needed and moved on. The ones promoting the gimmick were the most vocal in support for the appropriate changes.
So, why was I so vocal about Obama? Because the results I saw coming from his administration were in direct opposition to what I believed was government actions authorized by the constitution. The biggest, forced purchase of private company service/ products required by PPACA. There were many others.
Trump, on the other hand is a total ass. He constantly runs his mouth, making idiotic remarks, saying things that pisses off the left, comments like opening the country by Easter, etc ( and others can write pages added to those). But his actions do not match his words. For instance today he extended social distancing crteria, amoung others, through the end of April. Most of his agenda is in line with my political positions. You all know them, we have argued about them since 2017.
So I react to outcomes. Right now we are going through a disaster that the outcome is not known. Dr. Fauci today said he expected 100,000 to 200,000 deaths in USA before this was done. That means at least 25,000,000 will get it a 2.5-3.0 million hospitalized. Doubling the cases per week takes us out 7.5 weeks. If the curve is flattened, who knows when 25,000,000 will be reached. June? July?…And then who knows when it reappears this fall.
My position. We can not judge the decisions today because we dont know the outcome. I dont like the fact that NC governor did not lick down the state two weekscago, but it starts at 5 pm tomorrow. Only after this is over can we judge what the decisions made had on the outcome.
What someone says is unimportant when it comes to outcomes.
I pretty much agree with you entirely on Trump and Obama.
Though I would go further.
The overwhelming majority of attacks on Obama were differences in policy and ideology.
Many many people fought Obama tooth and Nail – I among them.
But only a few people attacked him personally. there are few claims that he was a “liar” except over things he clearly lied about – none of which are the trivial bullshit applied to Trump.
Some of the attacks on Trump are about issues – and I do not support Trump completely on issues – you back him much more than I. Regardless, we can all debate the issues.
But the overwhelming majority of attacks on Trump are personal.
Trump may give as good as he gets, but it is mostly meaningless noise, and most of the personal attacks on Trump ultimately prove false.
But I am going to disagree with you on Covid19.
We are touching on an area where the use of force is SOMETIMES justified.
I support quarantining people who are sick. You have a right to make your own choices.
But you do not have the right to infect others.
But the power to quarantine the sick is NOT the power to quarantine the healthy.
Not as president, not as governor.
“But the power to quarantine the sick is NOT the power to quarantine the healthy.”
So this is where one of the decisions made will need to be evaluated after the fact and guidance provided going forward. Same with cell phone tracking of 100% of the users 100% of the time.
But the difficulty in all of these decisions going forward to fix problems identified is balancing safety with rights. Taking the virus as example, one can be “sick” ,contagious, spreading the virus days before symptoms manifest. They should be quarantined based on your position but they would not based on your position. They could infect 10+ people depending on age lifestyle.
“So this is where one of the decisions made will need to be evaluated after the fact and guidance provided going forward. Same with cell phone tracking of 100% of the users 100% of the time.”
Nope, I am not aware of The US using Cell phone tracking for this.
I would consider a process by which Public health officials could request the movement and contact information of someone who was infected for a limited time frame.
But it would be narrow and limited to health and infectuous diseases.
“But the difficulty in all of these decisions going forward to fix problems identified is balancing safety with rights.”
There is never balancing of rights. You have no rights to ACTUALLY threaten the safety of another.
“Taking the virus as example, one can be “sick” ,contagious, spreading the virus days before symptoms manifest.”
That is possible, It is not yet established.
“They should be quarantined based on your position but they would not based on your position. They could infect 10+ people depending on age lifestyle.”
To my knowledge the US is not doing as the Chinese were. Nor do I beleive any other country is. With evidence to support that this was effective, there is a basis for a severely constrained government power. It would require a warrant, and would only return the contacts of the person traced.
It would further require some public health emergency to be declared to be operative, and a standard for infectuousness and lethality – are you going to allow the government to track everyone with a could.
Dave” Nope, I am not aware of The US using Cell phone tracking for this. ”
Please!!!!!! Read what I write in the context it is written!!!!!
I did not say it was used today. It is not!!! I said decisions going forward will need to be made , such as cell phone tracking. ACLU and Libertarians will have a hissy fit if that is ever proposed.
Read my comments more than once and please stop jumping to conclusions without reading the complete comment.
I have far less problem with public health officials getting a warrant to access your location from your cell data as well as that of all in proximity to you and forcibly quaranteening all of you, than I do with shutting down the country.
Ok sorry, I can see where my comment could be read that we do tracking. I left out “future” before ” tracking”
https://twitter.com/waltshaub/status/1244644882200879105?s=21
I will absolutely agree that we must never let this happen here – but the claimed connection to Trump is a figment of your imagination.
Trump is the leading figure speaking for a quick return to normalacy. Pretty much the opposite of the threat you are consumed by. o
I will be happy to join you in opposing any effort by those in government to demand even greater power.
Excellsnt coverage and not really political. We need more reporting like this and less MSNBC/ FOX. But they make millions, these two probably dont
This claim against Biden is slightly stronger than the one against Kavanagh.
Left, right, the press, wherever your politics are – I expect your response to be consistent with your response regarding Ford’s allegations against Kavanaugh.
I am no more or less inclined to beleive this allegation than that of Ford.
I expect the same of others.
If your reaction to this is different from your reaction to Ford-Kavanaugh, you are a hypocrite.
https://twitter.com/EraseState/status/1244328976245501952
The economy didn’t recover in a year. What’s he smoking?
Jay, check it out. It started in 20 and recovered in 21
My mistake – read it as 1930 depression. Damn small mobile screen type!
Much different economic model in the 1920s.
Don’t think you can compare then with now with any certainty.
“Much different economic model in the 1920s.
Don’t think you can compare then with now with any certainty.”
Because you say so ?
The Federal reserve was created in 1916. Classical liberals like to cite the 1920 depression, because it is NOT a different economic model than in 1929, or today.
You can try to argue that there is something fundimentally different today – than in 1920 – to the extent you would be correct – it would be because there is more regulation and more government interference in the free market. Otherwise nothing of consequence has changed.
But you can pretend if you wish than 2020 and 1920 are radically different.
Almost nothing was different from 1920 to 1929 – EXCEPT the response of government.
In 1920 – Harding and Coolidge did precisely what modern “experts” say you absolutely should not do, they cut spending, cut taxes, reduced the debt, and got an extremely quick recovery.
In 1929 the peak to trough change in GDP/DJIA was the same 1/3 drop that occured in 1920.
But Hoover and later FDR took exactly the opposite approach of Coolidge and Harding and got pretty much the opposite results.
There are numerous economic scholars – including atleast one nobel noting that had Hoover done as Harding did, he would have had much the same results and Hoover would have been re-elected with a booming economy.
The comparison is also apt with respect to the “great recession” – the other economic downturn that took more than a decade to recover from.
What they have in common – massive government intervention.
So NO! I am not happy with Trump, Republicans or Democrats for this “stimulus”
The 1920 depression – not the 1929 depression.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depression_of_1920%E2%80%9321
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/novartis-ceo-says-malaria-drug-072752054.html
https://www.redstate.com/darth641/2020/03/30/opinion-there-are-no-non-essential-jobs/
NBER Paper – the cautionary principle leads to INCREASES in deaths – evidence from the Japanese Tsunami.
https://www.nber.org/papers/w26395
More caution in government results in death
https://humanprogress.org/article.php?p=2177
https://scitechdaily.com/mit-posts-free-plans-online-for-an-emergency-ventilator-that-can-be-built-for-100/
Yup there is nothing there on HydroxyChloroquine…..
Two studies in France – the last indicating the odds of the results being a fluke – near zero.
https://townhall.com/columnists/kevinmccullough/2020/03/29/hydroxychloroquine-help-is-on-the-way-n2565926
Italy has almost certainly plateaued at this point. the number of new cases per day has not been increasing for well over a week.
Several other European nations – as well as the US May have plateaued
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8163587/PETER-HITCHENS-Great-Panic-foolish-freedom-broken-economy-crippled.html
Good article. Just some facts, nothing more.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/03/how-cities-flattened-curve-1918-spanish-flu-pandemic-coronavirus/?cmpid=org=ngp::mc=crm-email::src=ngp::cmp=editorial::add=History_20200330&rid=9AC55D3171DAF4D1C502D8B1689CD983
Interesting article.
I am having some problems with the information.
Peak death rate, deaths/100000, infections/100000
are different, and have significantly different meaning.
The purpose of social distancing is to reduce the peak infection rate so that the healthcare system is not overwhelmed. In theory that will reduce the number of deaths.
All the mathematical simulations I have seen indicate that social distancing has no effect on the infections/100000. But it might have an effect on the deaths/100000.
Further the techniques used – are social distancing NOT Shutdowns.
An effective near total shutdown could theoretically wipe out the disease in a short period.
But it would have to be near total, and there would have to be no other vectors for the disease to return to the population.
Quarantine alone works – so long as the quarantine is atleast 90% successful, and those quarantined are not merely the sick, but anyone who is potentially contagious.
That requires very effective exposure tracking.
That is what the US initially tried, and what has mostly succeeded in Japan.
Priscilla – feeling any better?
When do you get back test results?
Sorry Dave, but I cant buy into your level of Libertarianism. This is what you get from that hands off policy.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8163761/amp/Chinese-markets-selling-bats.html?__twitter_impression=true
What is your point ?
In the US we “euthanize” I think 1M dogs and cats a year – is that better ?
The eat dog in south korea, which is a developed country – americans eat cow, pigs and sheep.
If you are complaining about eating wild animals – which does increase the spread of disease – many americans still hunt and ear deer, further fish in most of the world is still caught wild.
Generally the chinese slaughter the animals they eat shortly before eating them. This might offend US sensibilities – but it is SAFER than slaughter houses and refridgeration. It took a decade for the US to reach the safety of slaughtering animals shortly before eating them.
Despite massive US regulation on the slaughter or meat, it was not until the late 1990’s that the US finally got past the “sniff test” for government meat testing.
Absolutely there are some aspects of food preparation in impoversihed areas that are unappealing to those of us with a much higher standard of living – that is universally true, has nothing to do with regulation.
Child labor ends – when poverty ends, working conditions improve as standard of living rise, food safety improves as standard of living rises.
Regulation has nothing at all to do with it. The pattern is universal – world wide and independent of regulation.
It also should be a tautology. Assorted forms of safety come at a cost, without sufficient standard of living we can not afford to pay for them.
By far the most dangerous aspect of poverty accross the world – is not the food itself, it is that the poor through the world still cook using wood, dung, and coal in confined spaces and the fumes are toxic. You can not fix that with regulations.
Dave, boy did you miss my point.
Lets just say under your no government oversight this could be the way we distribute beef and pork.
“Lets just say under your no government oversight this could be the way we distribute beef and pork.”
It would be – if that is what we wanted or we could not afford better.
Markets like you showed have been the norm through human history,
Ignoring the cats and dogs, live markets are because there is no refridgeration or because it is expensive.
In the US we had dairy cows in the cities – until we had refridgeration.
There is still a public health debate over whether pastuerization and homoqenization serve any value and do not actually make milk less healthy.
Because although there was a vast drop in milkborn diseases with the introduction of pasteurization – it coincided with significant improvements in milk refrigeration.
The average american lives in an entirely different world from a chinese peasant.
They do not have refridgerators. I was in Beijing in 1998. Almost everything we ate was between a day and a few hours away from perfectly fresh. If we had chcken – the chicken was killed hours before we ate, if we had vegatables – they were growing in the farm the day before. The food tasted incredible. But it was this way because there was little refridgeration.
Americans eat prepared foods that are months old. I have hamburgers in the freezer that are almost a year old. At the same time I can go to my local farmers market – where in the fall I get fresh tomatoes from 100 yards away – and the rest of the year the same “farmers market” has fresh tomatoes flown in from Brazil or Israel.
This is a function of a higher standard of living. It does not have anything to do with regulations.
I get your point – it is just wrong. There are a few cultural distinctions between China and the west. but most of the difference between a chinese market and one in a major US city 75 years ago is culture, not health. And you will see what you are showing in China, in countries all over the world with similar or lower standards of living.
Americans have actually taken cleanliness to a level where we are UNSAFE. We KNOW the explosion of peanut allergies is the direct consequence of the failure of toddlers to be exposed to enough dirt to develop their immune systems properly.
And outside of food we are terrified of “stranger danger – despite the fact that 99.9% of all child abuctions and assaults are by people they know – usually well.
Bujt god forbid you should let a 9yr go the the playground.
From the age of 4 on I spent most of my childhood running arround outside unsupevised ever. My parents would be in jail for that today.
SOS….
“The captain of a nuclear aircraft carrier with more than 100 sailors infected with the coronavirus pleaded Monday with U.S. Navy officials for resources to allow isolation of his entire crew and avoid possible deaths in a situation he described as quickly deteriorating.
The unusual plea from Capt. Brett Crozier, a Santa Rosa native, came in a letter obtained exclusively by The Chronicle and confirmed by a senior officer on board the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, which has been docked in Guam following a COVID-19 outbreak among the crew of more than 4,000 less than a week ago.
“This will require a political solution but it is the right thing to do,” Crozier wrote. “We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die. If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset — “
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Exclusive-Captain-of-aircraft-carrier-with-15167883.php
Here is one with out pay wall.
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/uss-theodore-roosevelt-coronavirus-isolation
One of the issues is how do you find quarters for 4000 personnel where each is isolated. I doubt any base in Guam has that many vacant single occupancy rooms to isolate each sailor.
Not a good situation, but someone will find a way to blame Trump, even though the ship departed Jan 17 and the virus did not show up until they visited Viet Nam weeks later. Maybe he infected a communist county with it, who knows.
Duck Duck Go Go sidestepped the paywall…
And nobody is blaming Trump FOR the Virus.
He’s rightly blamed for his shortsighted, contradictory, ignorant, DIVISIVE response to it.
When you elect an ignoramus it shouldn’t be surprising to learn he filters information like an ignoramus.
“ Trump says ‘nobody’ could’ve predicted a pandemic like coronavirus. Here are all the times he was warned about it and refused to take action.”
https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-all-the-times-trump-was-warned-about-pandemic-2020-3
That you keep defending this incompetent idiot is tiresome.
OK, I have said a couple times, we have many months to analyze the action taken from beginning to end of this crisis and place blames if that can be determined by non-political independent minds, not CNN/M<SNBC or Fox News political allies.
My comment was not, did not and could not be taken as defending Trump.
My comment was in response before it took place of the millions of issues that Trump is getting blamed for that he in no way could have controlled. There is no way in hell he could have stopped the Chinese virus from spreading to Viet Nam. Now he could have ordered the ship not to go into port, nor go into port at Guam, but was the virus detected in VN when the ship enters. I don't know. do you?
Jay, when one keeps finding small insignificant issues and constantly posts negative information and how bad it will turn out, and then it disappears a couple days later, people begin to turn off any negative information. I saw a clip somewhere yesterday that Rachel Madcow said on March 20th or sometime around then that Trump was lying when he said the hospital ship was going to be in NYC in a few days, that is was in dry dock and there was no way it was going to be outfitted and moved. People probably reacted and started filling twitter and all other media outlets with "Trump Lies" again. But the hospital ship is in NYC ready for patients.Did he lie? Or was Madcow trying to incite the political left? Did she know it could not move?
My point is you posts so many things that have no significance that when something big takes place, others ignore it. Maybe keeping your powder dry to blow a hole in the next big thing would be much better than using a cap gun approach on each and every speck of dust that comes from the white house.
I want to know when and how this crap started. Rumors are it started in ta live animal market, jumped from a bat to another animal and then to humans. Other have shot that down. Rumors are experiments are being conducted from the research center in Wuhan and it escaped from there. If I were to believe anything right now the last one is the one I would believe until proven beyond a reasonable doubt because China was way too secretive about this to just be animal to man transmission.
It is increasingly likely this came from Pangolins not bats.
And that they are a natural resevoir for the disease – i.e. they harbor it without getting symptoms.
https://www.intelligentliving.co/pangolin-suspected-as-direct-source-of-covid-19-outbreak/
Well if you believe this, you have more confidence in the Chinese scientist controlled by the Chinese government reporting fake news in Chinese press than I do.
I will beleive it when independent third party scientist from free countries do the studies and find the same results.
until them I will beleive what I believe.
Covid19 is 96% identical to a corona virus found in Bats. it is 99% identical to one found in pangolins.
It is most likely that the virus came from pangolins.
Why does this matter to you ?
It came from China, from wuhan, and probably from the wet markets regardless.
Could somebody be lying ? Sure. but there is no great political advantage to its coming from a different animal/
The 1917 spanish flu most likely started in Kansas.
The 2009 swine Flu most likely started in New Mexico.
While the chinese “wet markets” are a potential source of disease.
there are many ways diseases get into the community.
Raising birds and pigs in close proximity is very favorable to producing flu’s.
But once in a while a flu jumps straight from birds to humans.
In africa people living close to nature and monkeys introduce diseases like ebola.
As noted above – even in the more developed US – serious viruses can arrise.
There are precautions we should take. but there is nothing that will completely shut this down – until we get much better at fighting viruses.
And we are doing that.
40 years ago there was no treatment at all for any viral disease except vaccination.
We are not yet as capable of treating viral diseases as bacterial – but we are much better than 40 years ago.
I do not know if Hydroxychloroquine will prove effective – but it has actually been known that Hydrowychloroquine has antiviral properties for 25 years.
acording to all the reports I have seen, the Spanish flu came from Europe with the return of soldiers after WW1. The cases in Kansas were mutated forms of those found in areas where soldiers returned. Many areas in Europe covered it up to keep panic from occurring, but Spain did not, thus “Spanish Flu”
If it bagan in Kansas, it would be the “Kansas flu”.
The 3 most likely sources are Kansas, A british field hospital in france, and China.
Genetic studies have place the likely origin in north america.
There are also studies that strongly suggest that it originated in 1915
Regardless, there were mild cases in Kansas in January 1918 and that is too early for it to have come from Europe.
What we pretty much know – is it did not come from spain.
Well you have your facts and I have mine.
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-commemoration/1918-pandemic-history.htm
Additional info from other sites state the virus spread throughout europe and Germany, France and others hid that fact. Spain, also impacted, was open and provided info, thus it was called Spanish flu.
Please note the first identified cases in spring of 1918 were on military bases, (which is an indication returning soldiers brought it home).
There are several reports of Flu in Kansas in January of 1918.
The first reports were by a doctor who reported on unusual cases he was seeing.
Very shortly after that cases were reported in Ft. Riley Kansas.
These were not soldiers returning from Europe, but soldiers preparing to go to europe.
The source you provided did NOT say this came from Europe, and noting it in military bases does NOT mean it came from Europe. US Troops were headed TO Europe not FROM it.
Further troop transport – even in WWII was by boat. If it started in Europe and traveled back by boat it would not be first noticed in a military base, but on a boat full of sick soildiers.
The trip from Europe to the US was long enough that the virus would have gone through several generations on the trip. Anyone sick when they got on board would be dead or curred before they arrived.
Further the Spanish flu was unique in a way that Covid19 and all other subsequent flu’s and in fact nearly all diseases are not. The Spansh Flu attacked the HEALTHY. The stronger your immune system the more likely it would kill you. It did not kill old people and children it mostly killed healthy young adults.
US deaths – according to YOUR article were 650,000 the US population was 104M, The Spanish Flu killed 0.6% of the country. That would be the equivalent of 2M deaths today.
That is 50 times the covid19 deaths to date WORLDWIDE, that is 500 times the US deaths todate.
JHU data now pretty clearly has Italy past the peak and actually on the decline now.
https://www.kansas.com/news/state/article200889969.html
“He’s rightly blamed for his shortsighted, contradictory, ignorant, DIVISIVE response to it.
When you elect an ignoramus it shouldn’t be surprising to learn he filters information like an ignoramus.”
Actually listen to Biden talk about this – or look at what Obama/Biden did about Swine flu – there is no difference.
When Biden makes some announement about Covid – he opffers platiudes – much like your criticism that he would “lead” – if you want to be taken credibly – offer specifics ?
Thus far everything Biden has claimed he would do differently would make this worse.
You say Trump has been contradictory ? Please tell me what attribute of this thing is certain ?
We still do not really know how contagious it is. We still do not actually know exactly how it is spread. Nearly all the advice that “experts” are giving us is the same as what they would say regarding the flu. Nor do we know how many people are actually infected.
Random testing in Iceland found that more than 10 times as many people tested positive as were otherwise reported. If that is globally true – this is really no different than the Flu – it will infect 10’s of millions world wide, most of whom will not know they had it – aprently between 50-and 80% of the time this is MILDER than the flu, and the total deaths will be the same or less than the flu.
That may not prove true – but the fact is WE DO NOT KNOW.
Faucci made a point of saying that HydroxyCloroquie was only supported by anecdotal evidence – which is FALSE, there just have not been large double blind random trials.
And there is 25 years of evidence that Cloroquines are an effected antiviral – particularly against Corona Viruses.
It now appears that the reason that SK has such a low mortality rate is that HydroxyChlorquine was their recomended treatment. We do not yet have the treatment data and statistics from Korea, but they had 20K+ cases and 1/4 the fatality rate of the rest of the world.
Nor am I trying to fixate on HydroxyChloroquine.
The point is that even today there is an enormous about WE DO NOT KNOW.
Everything that the “experts” tell us is an educated guess, and it is changing all the time.
It is now known that n95 masks are 60+ percent effective in preventing RECEIPT of the disease. and masks, + gloves + goggles are almost 95% effective.
Yet YOU elite EXPERTS told us the opposite for weeks – and you want to rant at Trump for errors ?
They LIED – knowingly.
In 12 months or 2 years there will be a really good post mortem on this.
By then we will know many things we are guessing at now with absolute certainty.
We will know which guesses were correct and which were mistakes.
We will know which choices were good and which were bad.
Trump will have been wrong on many things.
The experts will have been wrong on many things.
Guess what – that is life. Perfection does not exist.
That is part of the reason you DO NOT where ever possible leave decisions to the experts.
If someone at the top must make a decision that if they get wrong will kill everyone, and they have a 90% chance of getting it right – then after 10 such decisions EVERYONE is dead.
If your have a really really really good expert – maybe it takes 20 such cycles.
If you take the same scenario and let people decide for themselves – no matter how many iterations, most people survive.
Top down decision making has a higher probability of getting any specific decision correct,
but a far high probability of a broad negative impact because when a bad decision is made it impacts everyone, not merely the small portion of the population that made that decision.
Just to be clear – we are STILL more than an order of magnitude lower impact than the flu.
We see these large and rising numbers on assorted dashboards – but we are not seeing the same numbers for the flu over the same time period.
You say Trump was warned. Well guess what the very same people (often the same ones selling CAGW) have warned us over and over for decades.
Every sentient human for 70 years has known something like this was coming.
What we did not know, and still do not know, is how consequential it will be.
If this stopped now – it would be orders of magnitude below the 2019-2020 flu in impact.
And we will look incredibly foolish for destroying the world economy for it.
At what point does the response that your harpies claim we should have made – actually make sense ?
If this ends up being 10 times worse than it is now – it still will be less than the flu.
I beleive Faucci is now saying 100-200K deaths in the US. that is 40-300% worse than a typical flu season. That is about 1/5 as bad as the 1917 Spanish Flu – and 1/20 as bad given the population increase.
Would that justify shutting down the entire economy ?
Further you rant and rant about poor decisions and mis informatuion and unpreparedness.
What is it that you would do ? Should we have stockpiled masks ? Masks cost money and they have a shelf life so any stockpile means you pay over and over for masks you never use. Should we have stockpiled ventalators ? When if the next pandemic is not respiratory ?
Further stockpiled ventalators need to be maintained and purchased.
There are numerous mistakes our government (and every other government) has made in dealing with this.
The “experts” at the imperial college in England now admit they were off in their projections by a factor of 10.
Must we spend a fortune to prepare for something that may never happen ?
Regardless, what is it that you would do differently ?
I can tell you what I would do differnetly.
CDC/NIH MUST be better able to stop things at our borders.
Even at Ellis Island people’s health was checked.
It now seems Trump’s Wall is a better idea than ever. Regardless of how many people you allow to enter the US from Mexico – you want them ALL to come through a checkpoint where if they are sick they can be quarantined.
We need to get the CDC/FDA further removed from our medical system.
If you want to blame Trump for not bitch slapping them sooner – I am with you.
But the testing failure in the US is ENTIRELY a government regulatory failure.
We could have had millions of people tested by now but for the CDC/FDA’s refusal to even allow tests not blessed by them.
The federal government should get completely out of medical testing.
If you personally want tested for something and you want to be assured of the quality of that testing – seek some private certification like UL or Consumer reports or good housekeeping. or … We do not need government blessing testing – they are too slow and too risk averse.
It is also self evident the government needs to get out of the process of approving medicine.
There are about 30 interviews of doctors, biologists, epidemiologists etc. on Youtube.
ONLY ONE says that they would not recomend using Chloroquine for this.
The overwhelming majority would recomend treatments that are far less probable to work if they were the only ones available.
Most ordinary people – even doctors fully understand that double blind randomized large scale studies are the gold standard for safety and efficacy. And they should factor heavily in treatment when the time exists. But in the meantime – we weigh risks against potential benefits. Waiting for perfection KILLS PEOPLE.
Today we are seeing that clearly.
It is not Trump that is stalling the use of treatments that MIGHT work. It is nto Trump that is delaying vaccines and medicines.
It is YOUR VAUNTED EXPERTS – your regulators.
The one most obvious failure here is the failure of the so called ‘precautionary principle”.
Too much caution KILLS PEOPLE and it makes us poorer – which also KILLS PEOPLE
https://humanprogress.org/article.php?p=2177
Piss on trump all you want – but everywhere I look, all the failures I see are failures of the very people you want to give more power too.
Piss over trump as you please.
Who would you put in charge of this ?
The head of the WHO ? Biden ? Most of NIH, CDC ?
These all universally recomended against the travel restrictions.
The other area you rant about is testing. The fundimental failure regarding testing was not shortages of test kits, it was the inability of the CDC/FDA to accept any test they did not develop themselves, and the inability to even allow others to develop a test when they were having problems.
Do you think that Biden would have resolved that ahead of time ?
He does not even know who is standing beside him.
I like Faucci and Birx. There is not a chance in hell I would give either total control to end this.
As with all subject matter experts – the ONLY thing they care about or know about is their field. This is not just a medical problem.
Please name a single person who has actually provided better guidance on this than Trump ?
Which expert has proven to be right at every point on this ?
You constantly want to presume that the political process (or any process) can possibly ever give us an omniscient and perfect leader. That is popycock. It is not possible.
I want to keep the government out of as much as possible – because mistakes are going to be made no matter what – by Trump, by Biden, by Obama, By Faucci, By Birx, by the WHO by ,,,,
If we are each returned the power to make choices for ourselves – we can each do as we please and the consequences of our decisions fall on us.
Your way – someone else’s error’s fork me over.
Is it hard to grasp that an aircraft carrier is just one giant quarantine ?
Naval ships have 2 unique disadvantages – close quarters and shared ventilation systems.
Conversely they have total control of their population, they can ORDER whatever measures they want or need, Everyone is confined to the ship and they can easily be confined to quarters. And they have an otherwise healthy young population that is the least likely to be seriously impacted by this.
I do not understand why this is even a story.
Weeks ago the US navy should have restricted shore leave and kept crews on ships.
Regardless, I would expect the capt. of any naval vessel to continue to operate his ship regardless of what he might confront.
Have no US ship ever had to deal with the Flu ?
The wisest thing Capt. Crozier could have done was not let his men have shore leave in Guam.
Beyond that very few in the navy are over 50. The Fatality rate for Covid19 is about that of the Flu in those age groups – maybe less.
Further the military requires soldiers to be fit – more than 2/3 of all Covid19 deaths are of people who would have died in the next 9 months, in italy only a tiny portion of deaths were in people who did not have an underlying serious health problem.
Are you saying that we have lots of diabetics and people with heart disease int he navy ?
On the Diamond princess – a Cruse ship with passengers and crew about 3/5 that of a carrier, only 700 people were infected and only 7 died, and the average age of passengers on a cruise ship is several decades higher than that on a carrier.
Capt. Crozier does not need a solution – political or otherwise.
He needs to do his job. If some of his crew is facing life threatening complications he can fly them to better care, otherwise he can isolate the infected.
This is a carrier – not a city, everyone on a carrier has chosen to surrender many of their rights and follow orders. Crozier has far greater ability to isolate this than a mayor of a small town.
“ Are you saying that we have lots of diabetics and people with heart disease int he navy ?”
I didn’t comment on the link at all, but your obnoxious opinionated anus must bloviate.
You prefaced your remarks with SOS and labeled Croziers letter and unusual plea.
If you actually agree that Crozier is failing at his job – then I apologize if I have improperly criticised you.
Regardless, you chose this story as something of interest.
Why ? Do you think that US naval ships never see the Flu ?
Todate the data we have on Covid19 is that for people under 50 its effects are the same or milder than the flu. that for healthy populations its effects are the same or milder than the flu.
Are you saying that YOUR experts are wrong about that.
Please tell me why I should take these stories any more seriously than “some navy ship has gotten the flu” ?
A US aircraft carrier is NOT center city new york.
Covid19 gets into a VA Hospital – that is a really really really big deal. That would be a much older and unhealthy population that it likely would attack murderously.
And Absolutely the government should do something very serious about it.
But if the captain of a US naval vessel wrote about Covid19 – and he is not told to find the protocols for the flu and quit making a nusaince of himself, then he and his superiors are Forked up.
I not only expect the captian to manage Covid19 on his ship without any outside assistance – if necescary I expect that he will FIGHT his ship if required in the middle of this.
This is the US military, not a Seattle old folks home.
If this shows up 2-3 times, wordpress has ignored my tries to post. This is interesting. I have not left my house for over two weeks and we only have 40 cases of this stuff in our county. Just a few miles from me where all our shopping is done is the county with no cases as of yesterday. I still won’t go out. NYC began this March 1 and now has over 75,000 cases. On March 20th, when this happened, they had over 8400 cases.
Why were people out getting exposed to this stuff? He is a news person. He gets the news first before anyone else? Why was he out getting himself exposed and possibly infecting his family?
What am I missing? Its not like he is a first responder or healthcare worker running to the danger. Why didn’t they begin offsite broadcast when everyone was being told to stay at home, social distance, etc, etc.
So now how many has he infected that may not have been infected? ESPN has been offsite broadcasting for sometime. Our local news has been offsite longer.
Its not like Dan Rather running around Viet Nam with the troops risking just his life. If needed he could do the stupid show on the phone as a talk show.
I have little sympathy for him, but I do for his wife and family living with someone this stupid. I have sympathy for those catching it and for the families of those having love ones die. But for stupidity, I have no sympathy.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/31/media/chris-cuomo-coronavirus/index.html
Ron, it’s hard to overstate the reverence with which New Yorkers regard Mario Cuomo. His sons have a sense of entitlement equal to crown princes, despite the fact that they don’t have an ounce of their father’s talent. But, I imagine that they both consider rules to be for “the little people.”
Nevertheless, now that I have this damn virus myself, I sympathize with anyone who is sick with it. I have a moderate case, but I can tell you that the fatigue factor is something the likes of which I have never experienced. It’s really kicking my ass. My doctor thinks I’m about halfway through it, and is confident that I will be fine. My cough is already gone, and I haven’t had any shortness of breath. But I sleep like 15 hours a day!
I popped in today because I thought that this was an interesting article. It’s pretty fair and balanced, I think, although Barack Obama doesn’t get a super review, so anyone who thinks that he was one of our greatest presidents won’t like it. Nor will anyone who thinks that Trump is the worst president ever. But, otherwise, I think it’s a quick, worthwhile read:
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/historian-trump-best-to-handle-virus-crisis-born-for-this-moment
I would disagree with the assessment of Clinton.
He was not decisive enough, he failed in Rwanda and Somalia, he could not make a decison in the balkans, he got Arrafat and Barak together at camp david and the Isreali’s desparately wanted a deal, and Clinton could not close.
I do not think that Clinton was a bad president – even though I would have impeached and removed him for lying under oath.
Todate Trump is aspiring to reach Clinton levels – Trump has been much better on foreign policy but not quite as good economically.
But Trump is possibly the best president for this particular moment.
And Biden reminds us of that constantly with his basement bunker speachs.
The best shot at defeating this was at the border.
Trump tried – harder than any prior president.
He failed. I beleive the CDC/NIH failed him – they were not up to the job, and they were too in love with WHO who is clearly incompetent idiots – or as Nassim Talib would say – IYI, intellectual yet idiot.
Trump is the only president of all those listed who actually grasps that the free market is the answer to the majority of these problems.
He is not perfect – as noted he failed at the border – but so did every other world leader.
I think this stimulus is idiocy.
I am also upset with him for his tongue lashing of GM – the are making ventalators, leave them alone, they did not have to do that, they know how serious it is, they are going to make every ventaltor they can beating them publicly is not going to improve that.
There is no economic model on earth that can magically provide whatever is needed instantly in response to any events.
When something unusual happens there will ALWAYS be shortages of something.
There will ALWAYS be something who supply comes from some less than perfectly friendly foreign country.
But free markets will react faster and produce more of what is needed sooner than any other economic structure.
Jay can rant about shortages of this and that. But these will be solved – and quickly.
More complex items like ventaltors will take longer, but no other structure will ever do better.
If you are short of masks or Toilet paper or Sanitzer today – you are in a city were the ability to get in the stuff you are clearing from the shelves does not exist.
but soon enough the trucks will get to you.
Maybe Chlorquine will work. Maybe not.
If Obama, Clinton or Biden was president we would never find out.
It has been used in new york for a week. Soon we should have a very good idea if it is effective.
If not – something else might work.
If so – Trump will be a hero and Jay is going to be eating ALOT of crow.
Honestly I do not know about Hydroxycholorquine – but what I am reading leads me to strongly suspect it is a good cheap treatment option – something that we can deliver in the millions. There are probably better choices – and eventually we will find those, but it is not likely any of those are as cheap or readily available.
But that is not the point. Trump is the president who will push FDA to break the rules to crawl out from its culture of safety at all costs – including death
Even if nothing works – Trump TRIED, and he still forced FDA etc to try to.
People actually need that hope.
Trump strongly resembles Churchhill at the moment.
If Jay want to find a world leader that failed CONSTANTLY, He should try Churchill.
Churchill did some ludicrously stupid things – and quite often blamed others for not perfectly following his dictates.
But he gave the british people hope and pride when they were getting the shit kicked out of them. And quite often he was LYING to the british people.
He was still the leader they needed.
I think FDR was a shitty president – but he was inarguably a great war leader.
But no one ever has come close to churchill.
Cuomo gets to make his own choices – and his appear not to have been wise.
This is inevitably going to be worse in big cities. It is just a fact of life that pestulance likes concentrated populations – this has been true for millenia.
It is also why we can not make decisions from the white house or the governors mansion.
I made a business trip to Delaware a week ago when the lockdowns just started.
I looked at the spread, I noted that there was nothing where I was from and nothing where I was going.
I deliberately avoided resturaunts and gas stations along the way,
and I did the job and came home safely. And I will get paid well for the work.
One full days work – in the miserable rain and my finances are secure for another full month.
I had a risk/reward decision to make.
I could have made a mistake.
I could have gotten the flu and been out for two weeks – I still would have been ahead.
I could have gotten Covid19 and been out for two weeks – if I was 100% certain of that AND that I would like and need need hospitalization, I would not have gone.
But if getting it was 50:50 and I would live and not require hospitalization – I would have gone.
I turned done a 1 day well paid work request for a project in Manhattan.
I want to make my own choices – when is the risk worth it, when isn;t it.
If we all do that – some of us will prove wrong. Some FATALY Wrong.
I wish Cuomo the best.
I agree with you I would not have made his choices.
But I fully support his right to make them.
The rest of us need the same freedom.
When asked by a reporter what changed his mind from comparing COVID-19 to an ordinary to his recent shift in tone of it’s severity Trump said:
“I think also in looking at the way that the contagion is so contagious, nobody’s ever seen anything like this where large groups of people all of a sudden have it just by being in the presence of somebody who has it. ..”
Please translate that Trumpish statement for me.
Is he saying he didn’t understand the seriousness of the pandemic disease numerous advisors were describing to him? Is he admitting doesn’t possess the level of knowledge or temperament or intellect required to respond with foresight to an event of this dire magnitude?
Tranlation:
No on knows what the fork is going on, we have to play everything by ear.
Jay,
You know this.
Whether you are prepared to admit it or not, there is no way of knowing what the right thing to do is. You are correct – Trump does not have the knowledge to deal with this NO ONE DOES.
There are some things we DO Know.
The WHO is incompetent. Had we left this up to them 10m people would be infected by now.
They rant about the dangers or infectuous diseases, but they are unable to make recomendations that are not distorted by politics. They are near certain complicit with China in hiding this early on, and they are still fawning over china. And our own experts are unwilling to call them out on their failures.
We know that the “experts” at imperial college in the UK have revised their projections by two orders of magnitude, and those in the US have revised their by one order of magnitude – and they do not have an explanation for why the change – and you want to beat up Trump ?
If people like Dr.’s Fergesson, Brix, and Faucci do not know. It the other experts advising them do not know – who is it that you think does ?
Is Trump not expert on this – absolutely. The experts are not expert.
To be clear – I am not faulting them.
But Ii am faulting you for this stupid game. This pretense that any uncertainty on Trump’s part is due to stupidity, but greater uncertainty by the experts is normal, and we should just kow tow to them.
I appreciate the advice of the “experts” – but with very few exceptions, we should each make our decisions based on that advice on our own.
We may have a good idea when this is all over, But by then we will have to have made decisions.
Personally I think Trump is wrong to wait – even if that does mean more Covid19.
Frankly I think we should end this shutdown nonsense right now, and switch to limits on gathering sizes, quarantining the sick, quarantining hospitals and old folks homes, and all other measures are voluntary.
We have seen many different country’s try many different things, there are only a few that appear to have actually succeeded, and the results elsewhere are close to uniformly the same – short some country specific features such as poorer health care and stupid ideas like licking relics, or a significantly older than normal population.
Dave,, In addition to so many playing this by ear, I heard a report today that investigative reporters, along with infectious disease experts now say China is blowing smoke up the world ass with the number of cases and deaths reported. Their modeling, using crematorium data, number of urns used and other related data associated with deaths places the Chinese death toll at 300,000. They estimate between 30,000,000 to 40,000,000 chinese contracted this virus and they said that is a very conservative estimate. And that is still only about 3% of their population.
First – the chinese are lying about there numbers. That is just a given.
That said I have seen the same data based on urns etc and I do not think it is reliable.
The first relatively trivial error is that it fails to take into account the normal deaths during the time period.
Using the US as an example.
2.8M americans die each year. that is about 8000 per day. That is more people dying per day than have died in the US from Covid19.
Hubei province has about 60M people – that is about 1/5 the population of the US.
At a similar normal mortality rate that is 1600 people per day. Or 12000/week.
I beleive elsewhere that there is information suggesting the crematoria normally process about 23-28000 bodies a week – before Covid19.
The 43,000 per week estimate is based on the crematoria running 24×7. It is not an actual number.
It is possible that something near 3% of Hubei was infected, That is 1.8M infections – not 80K,
I do not think the death toll is off by a factor of 100 – there is absolutely no way in the world the chinese could hide that. I do not even think the death toll is off by a factor of 10, more likely somewhere between 2-5.
But the number of infections could be way off.
It is probable that the number of infections everywhere is way off.
The vast majority of experts at this point beleive that at a minimum 50% of all infections are symptom free.
Iceland currently reports 1200 cases, with 2 deaths. But a random sample testing done in iceland found 3.7% of the population tested positive – that is 13000 people if that holds.
That is also a factor of 10 more infections than reported.
If the US currently has 2M infections not 200K then the mortality rate is %0.2 – which makes it only a tiny amount worse than the flu.
Further we do not have good data on how much this spreads uncontrolled. Though we ultimately will. But I strongly suspect that even absent measures to limit it, that this probably does not get to much more than 4% of the population,
Unfortunately I think it is going to be a long time before we find out the truth and that when we do it will be significantly downplayed.
It is going to be in everyone’s interest when this is over to declare victory and to celebrate what a wonderful job we did.
Democrats are going to say it is much worse than it should have been and republicans are going to say it could have been much worse than it was.
No one is going to say – we shut down the country over a disease that only would have infected 4% of the population and has a CFR of 0.2%
Or put differently, we took on a bad cold and beat it.
If that proves the truth – you likely will not hear it. No one will want to tell you
When Idiots Are In Charge
Dan Rather: “ The long-running inaction, indifference, and hostility to science and the truth by the governor of Florida, compounded by the complicity of the White House, could emerge as one of the great tragedies and outrages of modern American history.”
Georgia Gov. Kemp says he just recently learned asymptomatic people could transmit coronavirus: “We didn’t know that until the last 24 hours.”
There is not idiocy here – it is STILL not known with high certainty whether asymptomatic people can transmit this and if so to what extent.
We do not even know the actual extent of asymptomatic people. The “experts” currently think it is about 50% of all cases. But there is evidence – including empiracle evidence from iceland that as much as 80-90% of all cases are asymptomatic.
You are really not getting this Jay. You keep touting “experts” and pretending we have to treat what they say as the word of god, you are like an evangelical with the bible.
Yet, the “experts” agree on very little, and what they do agree on they are constantrly changing their mind.
The imperial college in the UK beleived at one point that 50% of England was already infected and 500K britons were going to die. Now they think it is only 20K.
What changed ?
Why were we to beleive them before AND beleive them now ?
I am not faulting the “experts” – atleast not much.
Just pointing out that this pretense that everything is known, or was known is obviously false.
But we are going to get this from you everytime the “experts” change their minds.
Do you have actual proof that asymptomatic people can transmit this ?
Do you have empiracle proof of the number of asymptomatic people ?
Of the percent of them that can transmit this ?
If you do please share it with all of us – because the “experts” do not have that.
I am sure you can come up with a press story, but I can match it with one that says something different easily.
Because we do not know.
If the data from the large random survey in iceland is correct Covid19 is:
Possibly 10 times as contagious as currently beleived.
But only 1/10 as fatal as we beleive.
And probably limited by something to less than 4% of the population.
That would make it about 1/5 as consequential as the seasonal flu.
But all of that is based on a single large random test in Iceland.
We know that there are a large number of asymptomatic people.
But there is no firmly established understanding of how frequent they are.
Nor contra your claim whether or how contagious they are.
Hypocrite Trump A-Hole Continues True To Form
https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-congratulates-businesses-for-helping-fight-coronavirus-but-his-own-company-has-been-absent
“Trump Congratulates Businesses for Helping Fight Coronavirus. But His Own Company Has Been Absent.
ProPublica examined the seven hotel properties and dozen U.S. country clubs owned by the Trump Organization and could find no sign that any are taking the sorts of civic-minded steps the president has urged.
One example is New York. As coronavirus cases multiplied, Gov. Andrew Cuomo asked hotel owners to donate their properties (already shuttered or largely empty) for emergency use by medical personnel or noncritical patients requiring isolation. By March 26, according to a list of “significant donations” posted on the governor’s website, six had agreed to do so, including the high-end Four Seasons, St. Regis and Plaza hotels. “Proud to see NY’s hotels stepping up!” the governor tweeted on March 26.
The Trump International Hotel and Tower, with 176 rooms and suites overlooking Central Park, is not among them. Instead, at a moment when New York City, enduring the nation’s worst pandemic onslaught, is under a shelter-in-place order, the Trumps’ Manhattan hotel remains open for paying guests. (Rooms, according to the hotel’s website, start at $525 a night.)
The New York governor’s list details 31 contributions from “major corporations, philanthropic organizations and celebrities” aimed at increasing the state’s “supply capacity” amid the pandemic’s surge. It includes donations from Goldman Sachs (195,000 masks); Facebook (2,500 gallons of hand sanitizer), and TV host Kelly Ripa and her husband ($1 million cash). The name “Trump” does not appear on the list.“
According to Forbes Trumps net worth has already declined by $1B.
Contra to your oppinion Trump does not own many hotels – and most he owns are not in the US. Most hotels with Trump’s name on are Licensed – they are owned by others who pay the Trumps for the use of the name.
Of the hotels he owns – the Trump’s do not manage most of them.
The Trump International has been closed for several weeks now.
Still in Trump ass kissing mode I see.
Stop the Trump-Doesn’t-Own-bullshit.
And the equally nonsensical ‘others’ manage his properties.
Trump is an uncharitable tightwad.
His history of non-giving is decades long.
https://www.prweb.com/releases/fundanything/donaldtrump/prweb10700690.htm
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3449920/That-time-Donald-Trump-saved-family-farm-Widow-s-daughter-campaign-rally-recall-Donald-paid-mom-s-300-000-mortgage-father-committed-suicide.html
https://www.truthorfiction.com/trump-unthinkable-liz-conklin/
“Still in Trump ass kissing mode I see.
Stop the Trump-Doesn’t-Own-bullshit.
And the equally nonsensical ‘others’ manage his properties.”
If you do not have the facts right – the rest of what you have to say is pretty worthless.
“Trump is an uncharitable tightwad.
His history of non-giving is decades long.”
Separate debate – if actually true that would be irrelevant.
He was not elected saint he was elected president.
Yo, Dave. Here’s Idiot President Contortionist doing what he does best: pat himself on the back while kissing his own ass:
Trump signed two separate bills expanding unemployment.
Regardless, Unemployment – though partially funded by the federal government is administered by the states.
There is absolutely nothing that Trump can do to make UC applications easier.
Having had direct experience – as an employer and as an employee with my States UC they are among the least competent part of government.
That said applications have increased something like 100fold.
There is no way they can keep up.
Finally, you can apply for unemployment online – atleast in my state.
It is a tedious process – everything associated with government is tedious.
But it does not require an operator to answer the phone.
Is there a person here who doubts that Trump was resistant to shutting down the economy ?
That he was only barely persuaded to do so ?
That he actually gives more of a crap than you or most anyone else posting here about the people who are losing their jobs ?
Your entire post is a giant fallacy and a pretty stupid one at that.
There is no relationship between Trump noting his own ratings and unemployment.
Are you trying to argue that there is some causal connection ?
That if Trump would just allows his personal ratings to tank, that no one would be unemployed ?
Jay you and most of the tweets you pull are suffering from Maximal TDS
Mayor Myrick seems to be fixated on his social media presence.
Pot meet kettle.
What is Myrick doing about Covid19 in Ithaca ?
Or unemployment ?
Trump’s idiot son-in-law mesmerizing with insight:
“If I’m Joe Biden, I ask voters one simple question in 2020: Do you want four more years of Jared Kushner”
And if Biden takes that advice he will lose.
Kushner was heavily involved in the Mexico and Canada trade deals.
He was heavily involved in the pivot from Iran back to Saudi Arabia,
The move of the US embassy to Jerusalem.
He was instrumental in the criminal justice reform act and went head to head with Sessions to accomplish it.
He has been from the begining a strong advocate of getting out of Afghanistan, and lead several failed efforts to accomplish that, and was instrumental in the latest successful on.
Kushner lead the effort to fire Comey.
Kuschner has been heavily involved in the Trump pardons – particularly the many black women.
Kushner is not a particularly good public speaker. So what.
His remarks were accurate.
Kushner: “An entitled nepotism enabled putz placed in charge of the most serious disaster response in decades over thousands of better qualified and experienced professionals” by a bumbling bozo.
Dunce Donnie’s son-in-law told him New York didn’t need additional ventilators. Result:
Trump team in inaction:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/04/02/coronavirus-trump-said-force-gm-build-ventilators-he-hasnt/5100856002/
Jay, once again I am going to ask the same question, but first read this.
https://www.npr.org/2020/04/01/824610787/fema-hadnt-ordered-ventilators-manufacturers-forged-ahead-anyway
Put your TDS to the right side of your brain and let your left side think logically.
After reading this, isn’t it highly visible that the problem in all of this the massive government structure with multiple fiefdoms involved in the procurement of anything for government.
This is not about a president! In 1940 there were 700,000 federal employees, most throughout America. Today, there are 2,100,000, most in Washington D.C. Three times the numbers, three times the number of managers and probably three times the number os approvals one needs before someone can do final aporoval on a P.O.
How about bitching about the problem that would be present under any president. Why wasn’t medical supplies replenished after the swine flu epidemic? Many blame Obama for leaving the cupboard bare.
I dont. I blame government bureaucracy. And that isvwhat you should be bitching about now!
Why do we even presume that it is the federal government who should place the order ?
Why not the state, or better still the hospital ?
Is there anyone who does not think that GM & Ford are doing everything humanly possible to produce ventalators as quickly as possible ?
They face a gargantuan task – they have to design a product, build a production line, create a supply chain, find and train a workforce, and build a delivery chain.
And they have to do this ASAP.
Is there a sane person on the planet that thinks adding thousands of government mid level managers to the process would be helpful ?
Ford and GM are purportedly going to have large numbers of ventalators ready by the end of April.
Or we could involve even more govenrment and have them in 12-18 months – like the Covid19 vaccine.
Based on preliminary trials in humans of several vaccines we already know that atleast some of the already produced vaccines result in the production of antibodies to the Covid19 virus.
These vaccines thus far did not kill or otherwise screw up any of the volunteers.
So what is it that is going to take another 12-18 months to produce these ?
And if you beleive as these “experts” tell us that 12-18 months is required.
Then how is it that you beleive GM and Ford will have thousands of ventalators by the end of the month – a much harder task ?
Dave,”Why do we even presume that it is the fed government who should place the order ?”
I thought I made that point. In fact I thought I have made that perfectly clear over the past number of years commenting here about government incompetence.
I think there is one responsibility of the feds. Listen to governors as to their needs, assess the supply and activate the Procurement Act if needed.
Once the supplies begin coming out of factories, associations like the American Hospital Association should activate a small group of hospital purchasing managers to determine where the needs were and distribute those to meet those needs. The private sector, using national professional organizations are much better equipped to handle that than some lifers in D.C that have never seen a warehouse, ket alone know anything about healthcare needs.
I read your link, Ron.
It CONFIRMS MY LINK of “Trump Team Inaction.” Didn’t the LAG IN ORDERS below register?
“Companies say they haven’t been sitting around waiting for those contracts; they forged ahead anyway. But the lag in orders may represent a missed opportunity. Instead of placing a massive order early, using the purchasing power of the government to accelerate production before the crisis hit, the White House is committing to purchases only after many manufacturers have already swung into action.”
You’re suffering from TDS -Trump DENIAL Syndrome. And the bureaucracy you continue to bitch about is now TRUMP’S Bureaucracy. If it’s fluttering under his presidency after a full term of office, HE takes the blame. He takes double the blame for decimating for not focusing sooner on what needed to be done. Is your TDS refusing to accept that his erratic ass dragging responses to the virus reflect inept leadership?
And get your statistics in balance:
US population in 1940: 132.1 million
US population in 2019: 329.4 million
Bureaucracies grow in proportion to population.
Trimming inefficient bureaucracies is desirable; decimating them without foresight is STUPID. In 2018 the Trump Administration destroyed the government’s entire pandemic response chain of command, including the White House management infrastructure. That turned out to be negligently stupid.
Here, read this – hopefully it will help shake those denial cobwebs from your brain.
Jay, you have your left wing facts, I have mine.
My point that went totally over your head was the fact that there is too much bureaucracy in government today. Do you think Trump can walk into an agency, fill out a P.O. and have it sent? NO! He can’t do that. Because there are too many regulations in the federal register concerning anything the govt want to do.
What is wrong with people that can not see this crap? Why did’nt Obama order the “whatever” agency that stocks medical supply to refill everything used up in the swine flu pandemic? Because there are procedures to follow! They are int he massive federal register.
What is it that make you think Trump is a king and can order his subjects to jump when he says so. He can fire anyone he has appointed, but by god the civilians are not going to do that, they are going to follow procedures.
And when the population grows, it does not take a growth in employees to manage that population growth. And with computers that growth is further reduced. Just because population grew 3 times since 1940 does not mean we need 3 times the number of government employees. Most any agency could have done the work today with 1/2 or less the growth in employees. There is no business in the country that could survive if their salaries grew 150% when their sales grew the same amount.
In finance we call that fixed, semi fixed and variable expenses. Salaries for the most part are semi fixed or semi variable (same thing). Example :You produce 1 check up to 5000 checks, it take 10 people. At 5000 checks you add another person and at 7000 you add another.
It is amazing how TDS impacts the intelligence of otherwise smart people.
Ron: “And when the population grows, it does not take a growth in employees to manage that population growth.”
Au contraire mon amie.
As population increases the complexity of governing-caring for the population increases, sometimes exponentially. For example, between 1850 and 2019 the number of US licensed doctors increased from 12 per 100,000 patients to 32 per 100,000 – and that doesn’t include the disproportionate increase in medical bureaucracies of nurses, technicians, pharmacists, or the multiple number of computer-related positions now needed to provide assistance.
The same bureaucratic explosion in size can be traced to law enforcement throughout the US- from uniformed cops (quadrupled per 1,000 population since 1930s) to the multiple ancillary employees needed to operate modern police stations.
And what evidence do you have that computers make bureaucracies more efficient? Have you visited a modern DMV lately for auto license or vision tests or renewals? The computer proliferation there has slowed down the process.
Streamline inefficient govt. bureaus – yes. Take hatchets to them in a frenzy of partisan glee like drunk frat boys chopping down neighborhood fences. No.
Doctors are not government, even doctors licenses are handled by the state not federal government.
Further we have more doctors proportionately – NOT because the population has grown – but because our demands from the medical system have grown.
That has nothing to do with government.
YOU increasingly expect government to wipe your ass and clean your face.
I do not. If you want nanny government that swaddles you from craddle to grave – fine YOU pay for it. You can not morally force on me what you want and then make me pay for it.
More blah.
Bureaucracies-, state, national, whatever – are subject to the same population pressures to EXPAND.
If you don’t understand that you’re dumb as dust.
So your “argument” is “if you do not agree with me your dumb” ?
Compelling argument.
In 2019 GM produce 3M cars with 164K workers.
In 1955 GM employed 557K people and produced 3M cars.
In india the government employes 3.8% of people.
In Hong Kong it is 7.5%
South Korea is 10.3%
Japan 10.9%
The US 15.8%
Graph these and there population – there is no trend line, no correlation.
Put simply your argument is false, the facts in the real world do not support it.
India is not an example of an efficient government. But HK, SK and Japan are.
In France it is 42%.
In Cuba it is 77%.
It is probably stupid to call someone stupid for failing to understand a claim that is contradicted by many many facts.
“The same bureaucratic explosion in size can be traced to law enforcement throughout the US- from uniformed cops (quadrupled per 1,000 population since 1930s) to the multiple ancillary employees needed to operate modern police stations. ”
Not addressing state and local. I am addressing feds.
You say some things cause government to increase exponentially.
that is quite simply a failure of government should that actually be the case.
If government expands exponentially with population – then we need more and less populous countries.
You note law enforcement exploded since the 30’s – actually law enforcement explosed since prohibition.
The war on drags has done the same. So we paid an incredibly high cost to fail to stop people from drinking and worse still significantly more deeply corrupted government expanded law enforcement and then corrupted it.
Rinse repeat.
You would think maybe you would have learned something.
“Law enforcement has increased since the 1930’s.”
Yes, more laws, require more law enforcement. Laws are not free. The only laws that come at no cost are those that people would obey – even if they were not laws.
So we have less freedom, more laws, more law enforcement, and we have to pay for being worse off. And you want to sell this as a good thing ?
While I suspect you are correct on the increase of police per capita since 1930 – driven by prohibition, the war on drugs and the myriads of new crimes and regulations you create,
I have not been able to find data to back up that claim – do you have a source for the police per capita in 1930 ?
Also given that we do not accurately know the police per capita today – approx 250/100,000 is an estimate. How can we know what is was in 1930 ?
Prez Petulant Putz at it again-
“ U.S. President Donald Trump says he’s signing a Defense Production Act directive to stop the export of masks and other medical equipment. Comes after Canadian government officials said today they were pressing the U.S. not to block shipments of N95 masks to Canada.” CBS-Alert.
This comes a day after Trudeau personally asked they not be blocked. Trudeau said essential supplies and medical professionals move in both directions across the border, and it’s in both nation’s mutual interest to continue to help each other.
I guess Trump doesn’t give a fuck about mutual interests – he doesn’t own any hotels or golf courses there.
So if he let medical supplies needed to save lives in America go to Canada you would be saying:
“Prez Petulant Putz ships medical supplies to Canada at the expense of American lives. Doesn’t he know we need them here. Guess he does not give a fuck about people in New York or California because they dont vote for his sorry ass”
Absolutely no matter what Trump does Jay will attack it.
We all know that.
As will the democratic party and the left.
But we do not expect rationality from either the left or the right.
And the media will be right beside them .
Which is why we no longer trust the media
First you bitch that Trump has NOT signed the DPA, now you protest that he has ?
As to masks etc. The best solution is to allow the market to decide.
If Canadians and germans are prepared to pay more for something scarce – let them.
It is those rising prices that drive production – in the US and Germany and Canada to produce more masks.
What is your solution ?
You want to prohibit the sale of medical supplies to foriegn countries – because we need them, while concurrently insisting that we provide supplies to foreign countries because they too need them.
Whether you like it or not – there are not enough of many supplies at the moment.
NOTHING will change the number of masks in the world today.
Governments stepping in will assure that the number will rise in the future – as slowly as possible. Government staying our will assure that the number will rise in the future – as fast as possible.
You rant about people supposedly trying to “price gouge” – turns out it is foreign governments trying to buy up all our supplies.
LET THEM – let those who have masks sell at whatever price they can get, and those who wish to buy – to get however many they can at what price they are willing to pay.
The net effect if the price rises is everyone accross the world will be more carefull about using the masks they can get – because they are precious and more likely to buy only what they need.
The Fed’s and NY have had a tiff because NY has demanded ventalators that are more than it need right now. The fed’s can meet that demand – but only by denying others their requests for needed ventalators. There is no doubt NYC will ultimately need everything they have requested – but so will other places.
Ultimately if the charity of Ford and GM and 3M and MyPillow does not get us the supplies we need – their greed will.
It is a fundimental law of economics that PRICE is a market signal. Low prices tell the market to produce less, High prices to produce more. shortages temporarily drive prices up – which triggers production to increase. gluts drive prices down causing production to decrease.
Between Covid and a three way price war oil prices are tanking, and oddly even Trump wants to step in. WHY ? Russia, the US and Saudi Arabia are trying to agree to reduce production.
Let the price drop enough and that happens automatically.
No need for government.
Leave the economy alone. It does things fine on its own.
We see recessions and depressions mostly when Government Forks up.
Nearly all the US depressions and recessions of the 19th century were monitary – either through flooding of greenbacks. or through jiggering with the price of gold or silver.
In the 20th century those recessions and depressions were cause by the Fed. Again messing with the price of money
If the government can not manage money – and all governments everywhere have done an abysmal job of that. Why do you think they can get anything else fiscal or economic correct ?
Tell the canadians to ask the Germans for some of the masks they bought from 3M in the US in the past week.
Most of the marketplace is NOT made to order.
The entirety of this line rests on a complete failure to understand markets.
Further the federal government does not run hospitals.
Most if not all are private – though ObamaCare has decimated what not to long ago was the 30% of US hospitals that were catholic.
Government destroy’s private charity.
Nor is this accidental. The Obama administration was intent on confining all religion to churches, and getting it out of any charity or community involvement.
One of the reasons that government regulations and taxes are so damaging is that there is little difference between the effort needed to to payroll for one person as for 50.
I am in the process of growing a new business right now. One of the hardest problems I face is that I can not employ anyone, I have to work entirely with 1099’d subcontractors, because I can not afford the costs of payroll, not just the $ costs, but the time. I am not in business to do bookkeeping, or keep track of employee records. I spent 22 years of my life doing that for a medium sized business, I am not doing it again. Further I get paid well for the work I do.
I do not get paid at all for keeping the records the government requires.
The cost to do payroll for 1 person is not much less than 10, or 50.
When i started at the hospital in 1977, we were paying 1500 employees with 1.5 FTE ‘s. When I left the health system we were paying 2500 employees with 1.5 FTE’s.
Jay doesnt know cat piss about growth in employee staffing other than what MSNBC wants him to regurgitare.
In 1980 I payed about 20 employees with a staff of 3. In 2003 I payed 55 people with a staff of 2.
And my staff all had several other things to do besides payroll.
One of the problems is it is very nearly as much work to pay ONE person – legally as 55.
That makes it extremely hard for me to get over the hurdle and hire anyone.
once I have to do payroll, increasing to about 10 people is driven totally by needs – not government – but there are small government hurdles between 10 and 11, and again between 25 and 26 and at other places as you grow. Each of these drives us to look for ways to not hire people – and that is not what government is supposed to want.
I understand that my tenants and the talking heads on MSNBC have no clue about business.
But Jay has claimed to have run businesses before.
This stuff is pretty basic.
Jay has told us in the past that he was involved in upper management of a business.
I can understand that ordinary people are unfamiliar with much of this.
But Jay constantly demonstrates complete misunderstanding of the basics of business.
Things that even a mom & Pop shop know.
And the very text you quote notes that reporters fail at logic.
“Companies say they haven’t been sitting around waiting for those contracts; they forged ahead anyway.”
Markets are driven by DEMAND. PERIOD. Orders are ONE indicator of demand.
Do you think Ford and GM wait for you to order a car to produce it ?
“But the lag in orders may represent a missed opportunity. Instead of placing a massive order early, using the purchasing power of the government to accelerate production before the crisis hit, ”
The above is entirely an editorial opinion by the reporter and has no place in a straight news story. It reflects the Reporters (mis) understanding of how numerous things work.
Why is it a missed oportunity – Ford, GM etc. are producing the goods.
I think GM and Ford are pretty clear on the fact that massive numbers are needed.
There is already jousting between Trump and GM over deadlines and quantities.
GM is NEVER going to say they can not make 10,000 – unless they actually do not beleive they can not make 10,000. So you can pretty much bet that Both are making as many as they can. So what is the missed opportunity ?
And how is it that a large order will accelerate production that GM and Ford are already pushing as hard as they can ?
Is there some magic wand that gets waived when government orders something that makes the impossible possible ?
“the White House is committing to purchases only after many manufacturers have already swung into action.”
How is this different from how most markets work ?
Did Ford wait for your order to make a car ?
Does Maytag wait for your order to make a dryer ?
Does Hersey wait for your order to make a chocolate bar ?
Absolutely, having Trump as president does not miraculously fix government.
And yes, I am prepared to hold Trump accountable for all failures of govenrment – such as the failure to contain this at our borders – even though the specific failures were within CDC and NIH. Trump is still president.
Regardless, both Ron and I keep telling you – Government will ALWAYS fail.
And your answer is “If only we had a democrat”.
That is idiocy. Very very few people think that Joe Biden (or Obama) would have done better at this. Most of us are smart enough to grasp that Biden would have done significantly worse.
Regardless, unless you can make a credible claim that the Trump administration is somehow demonstrably worse that others – the argument is GOVERNMENT is incompetent, not specifically Trump.
Otherwise you are engaged in TDS.
I will be happy to agree with you that GOVERNMENT is incompetent.
“Bureaucracies grow in proportion to population.”
They do ?
Has the country gotten physically larger ?
Why would the department of interior need to be bigger ?
In 1940 there was not a single computer in the entire planet.
Today my your toaster is more powerful than Eniac.
I think we need far LESS people in IRS, SS, Treasury, …
The military is substantially smaller than it was then.
We did not need a department of education or energy then – nor now.
We did not need an EPA, we did not have a NASA and we really do not need NASA any more.
Frankly, I am pretty hard pressed to think of very much of federal government we do need.
We did not have any federal “law enforcement” before 1908, and I am not sure what need we have now. Crimes are the business of the states.
Regardless, you do not need to balance the budget to resolve the national debt.
You just need government spending to increase at a rate slower than inflation.
As to your article –
How do you expect anyone to take credibly an article that starts by Praising China’s Corona virus handling.
They hid the fact that the virus existed for more than a month, they were telling us it was not transmitted between humans long after they knew better.
They ignored it through chinese new year – with the result that it spread accross the world before anyone knew.
Even Faucci has noted – he would have made entirely different recomendations to the president had the Chinese apprised him of what they knew, and we probably would have contained this at the borders.
There are many things that China did not know, some of which we do not know now.
The world is not perfect.
But the problem here is that the Chinese government LIED or failed to disclose things they DID know.
As to WHO – they and democrats, and the media and probably if I go back – YOU were bemoaning Trump for overreacting by restricting travel.
It is hard for me to take credibly those who now think Trump did not do enough when at the time they were complaining that he was doing too much.
One of the nations that has handled this the best – Taiwan. Is NOT part of WHO.
Hmm ?
As to Ebloa – Pres. Obama forked up. Regardless we are talking about a disease that is NOT airborne and while extremely fatal, is not very easily transmitted. Nor do I recall Obama doing very much at all. Most if not all of what was done, was done by volunteers.
I would further note Obama botched H1N1 AND used up 97M respirators and failed to replace them so Trump started this with a government stockpile of 5M. instead of 100M
And no the US epidemic infrastructure was not hot shit then. Nearly everyone you are seeing now, are the same people who dealt with things then.
All I note from this article is how you and the reporter can not get the actual facts straight and then offer oppinion that is at odds with the facts as if it were fact.
“Kushner: “An entitled nepotism enabled putz placed in charge of the most serious disaster response in decades over thousands of better qualified and experienced professionals” by a bumbling bozo.”
That would be your oppinion.
The alternative would be someone who has been nearly as successful as Trump himself in a much shorter period of time.
Regardless, there are “experienced professionals” coming out the whazzo.
Again you display your complete ignorance of business and management.
It is rare that the people at the top of any organization are the most experienced professionals. You are at the top of an organization because you have outstanding management skills and the ability to make decisions regarding disparate information from MANY sources.
The last thing I want in this is a “experienced professional” – they will see absolutely everything from the perspective of THEIR area of expertise.
We see that right here at TNM – too many of you fixate on “keep me safe, even if it means everyone will have to live in poverty”.
Dr. Faucci and Brix might be the best in their field. But they have no expertise outside their field and what MAYBE you are slowly starting to grasp – there is alot more to dealing with this than fighting the virus.
FDR put Eisenhower in charge of D-Day and the entire european theater.
Numerous other generals were far better “fighters”, tacticians, strategists.
Eisenhower combined numerous skills – none of which he was particularly expert at,
but all of which were necescary to do the job.
“Dunce Donnie’s son-in-law told him New York didn’t need additional ventilators. Result:
Trump team in inaction:”
This is a logistical problem – absolutely no doubt NY needs more ventalators.
So does the rest of the country, again you want to put the wrong type of person in charge.
NY’s needs, the rest of the countries needs, the current supply, and the anticipated supply and future needs all have to be addressed concurrently.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/04/02/coronavirus-trump-said-force-gm-build-ventilators-he-hasnt/5100856002/
IS GM not working on ventalators ?
IF you bother to follow it – elsewhere on the web there is information on the Defense production act. It is a blunt instrument and you do not want to use it unless you have to.
Using it will likely result in LESS of what you want – because it is near impossible for government to jump into the middle of the economy,take over and get things done quickly.
And we need this done quickly
Trump has been using the Defense production act as a threat.
If you have not been paying attention to Trump – he does that all the time.
If you want ventalators and you want large numbers quickly – you want to let GM figure out how to get the materials, build the production lines build the products and get them delivered.
Do you think those in government are any good at any of those things ?
Jay;
While you are beating up Trump and deifying “the experts” – here is a summary of what “the experts” have been telling us since the start of this.
I do not particularly want to beat up on them – at the same time it should be clear that they do not have that much more of an idea of what is going on than the rest of us do.
You place this unbelievably high value in experts – Why ? It does not matter what the area, the track record of “experts” is poor. I do not want to beat on them too much – predicting the future is hard, and that is what you ask. We should consult “experts”. But ultimately we have to make decisions for ourselves. Further most of the time – the recomendations of the experts AND our decisions will prove wrong.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/04/03/virus_experts_early_statements_belie_prescient_portrayal_142845.html
This is supposed to be the US.
Why is the country the left (falsely) claims is some socialist paradise, one of the few bastions for sanity and liberty today ?
https://spectator.us/lockdown-please-swedish/
Well lets see what happens. In the last few days they have had a spike in new cases and are jot far behind USA in numbers per million population. Lets see what their death rate per million population is compared to the USA for covid-19 deaths. Using rate per virus cases is useless because no one knows how many cases their really is.
There infection rate per million is 75% of the US,
There death rate per million is 10% higher.
Neither are significantly different.
I would also note that Sweden is mostly north of the US and if there is a weather related factor – they are disadvantaged.
To the extent we can compare they appear on about the same part of the curve as the US.
To be clear – Sweden has NOT chosen to do nothing.
It has just chosen not to have government dictate except where necescary and to expect that people will make reasonable decisions on their own.
You need to compare Sweden to a state with a comparable popultation, say Virginia. Or any other individual state with 9M -10M population. Swedens largest city has less than a million. Compare Swedens 9M population to a state whose largest city is less than 1M.
Also, in Sweden kids leave home and get small apartments at 18-19. Average age. In USA it is average 26 yrs old. Last Swedes are much more ” loners”, usually having small groups of friends, living in smaller towns with less interaction in larger groups.
A much different lifestyle, demographic and population.
So they have 6000+ cases. Virginia has less than 2000.
“You need to compare Sweden to a state with a comparable popultation, say Virginia. Or any other individual state with 9M -10M population. Swedens largest city has less than a million. Compare Swedens 9M population to a state whose largest city is less than 1M.”
So large cities are a bad idea ? That seems to be true.
Lets say you are correct about the US-Sweden comparison.
The population density of the US and Sweden are comparable.
The US is huge and has a larger population, Sweden is smaller and has a smaller population
If Sweden was the size of the US it would have a little less population as the US (not much).
My state has lower population density than Sweden – why are we locked down ?
We have two cities maybe a bit larger than the largest in Sweden, but the closest town to me has about 5000 people and the closest city 60000. My entire county has just over 500K people
So swedes get apartments at 19 ? So ? they are loners ? So ?
I am not so sure these things are so. I have a friend who went to college in sweden – took 8 years to get a degree and was finally kicked out. He loved it, and would be back in a second – if the swedes would let him. But that is another story.
Regardless, he would dispute your claim that swedes are loners.
According to him – americans are anti-social.
Regardless, if the “demographics” of sweden are superior – we should adopt them.
I do not actually think that is so. But I do not care.
“My state has lower population density than Sweden – why are we locked down ?”
Probably because there are close to 9000 cases and growing daily.
But if you dont like what your state has done, you are free to move to North Dakota or South Dakota where they have not closed and only have 100 or so cases.
That is one thing Trump does, he supports the 10th amendment, understand the 10th amendment that states “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”. He understands what fits in New York does not fit in Bismarck North Dakoda.
“But if you dont like what your state has done, you are free to move to North Dakota or South Dakota where they have not closed and only have 100 or so cases.”
Fallacious argument. Offered constantly by the left.
I am real. I exist, I have rights. Government is not real, it is a creation of humans, it only has powers, and only those that are moral and legitimate.
If a thief or rapist lives next door – must I move elsewhere – because I do not like what they have done ? If the mafia demands money from me for protection – must I move away or be beaten up ?
That social contract that requires that I abide by the law, also requires the government to secure my rights, my liberty. and should it not do so – it no longer exists.
Government is an entity created by the social contract. If it fails to comply – it does not exist.
If you doubt that – look what happened in east Germany in 1989. Or what nearly happened at Tianamen square.
You cite the 10th amendment – reread the last clause. Also note the 10th amendment is about powers. Try reading the 9th amendment – the state is not mentioned – at all.
Because government has powers, Rights only belong to individuals. not government.
And the purpose of government power is the protection of rights, and when it fails at that – it must be altered or abolished.
“Fallacious argument. Offered constantly by the left.”
Dave, then why do you tell everyone ” you are free” or “you can do” when anyone else comments and you respond to any number of issues? I was just using your response for any number of issues that you respond to from others when it comes to your bitching about government in PA putting the state on lockdown.
“Dave, then why do you tell everyone ” you are free” or “you can do” when anyone else comments and you respond to any number of issues?”
And I am still making the same argument – YOU are free – Government is not.
I have been consistent on this forever.
“I was just using your response for any number of issues that you respond to from others when it comes to your bitching about government in PA putting the state on lockdown.”
But you were not.
I have never as an example said that you must leave YOUR home because your neighbor is threatening to rape or murder you.
I have never claimed that the appropriate solution to a neighbor’s use or threat of force against you is to excerise freedom to go elsewhere.
The important distinction between your fallacious misrepresentation of my argument – is that you are confused about FORCE.
Government is FORCE, And force may only be morally used when justified.
But very few private actions are force – and all acts involving force – whether private or government MUST be justified.
There is nothing that government does that is not force.
There is little that private actors do that is.
If a murderer or thief threatens to steal from you what is yours. I do not say “well you are free to go elsewhere” – the unjustified use of force is a crime, and you are by right entitled to be free from it – whether private or government.
Conversely merely not having the choices you want – that is not something you are entitled to a remedy for.
And I am still holding that if you dont like the force of the PA govt that the PA citizens elected to lead their state through good and bad times, then you are free to move to a state where less force is applied. I find this no different than high taxes in some states. The people living there accept that, even with excessive waste.
You may not morally use force against others without justification merely because the people elected you.
In 1938 Hilter won 80% of the vote in germany.
Did that make the final solution moral ?
There is a difference between people ARE chosing to vote with their feet and moving and people MUST move when government is oppressive.
We do not expect you to move where there are no theives and murders.
Though you might choose to.
You being free to quit a job you do not like, is not as an example the same as being free to leave an abusive spouse.
The job is not yours, but your home, your kids, your shared wealth – those are atleast partly yours.
“ Government is not real, it is a creation of humans…”
Libertarianism is not real, it is a creation of shamans..
Jay help me out here. The “Response to Ron P email….“ Government is not real, it is a creation of humans…””Libertarianism is not real, it is a creation of shamans..”
Did I really say “.“ Government is not real, it is a creation of humans…”. I cant find it. But if I did I must have been drunk because government is too damn real and too big.
Are you saying that free will does not exist ?
We can have that debate if you want.
But unless you are prepared to assert that free will does not exist, not only does libertarianism exist, but it is the only valid or moral ideology
In fact without free will – there is no such thing as morality.
You do not seem to grasp that arguments do not just come out of thin air.
That you can not just make 10 claims that appeal to you and ignore the fact that they each contradict each other.
Libertarianism need not be real – but each alternative has consequences.
If humans do not have free will libertarianism can not exist – it would not be a creation of shamans – because that would require free will and you would have a contradiction.
But if you do not have free will – you do not have morality.
Nor do you have democracy.
Ultimately human society would be like that of ants – social for certain, but rigidly heirarchical.
“And what evidence do you have that computers make bureaucracies more efficient? ”
trivial. If computers do not make things more efficient – stop buying them.
I work with computers constantly. I have used them to perform tasks that have been done manually or were not possible before.
But if I encounter a task were computer do not make sense. Do not add value and reduce cost – then we should not use computers – not personally, not in business, not in government.
I want computers eliminated or at the very least used differently in voting.
Just because a computer can do a job does not mean it should
The DMV is a disaster, that is not new. Today the population of my country is much larger than 50 years ago. And the number of DMV locations and personel is smaller.
They still do the job badly – but without computers they could not do it at all.
“Streamline inefficient govt. bureaus – yes. Take hatchets to them in a frenzy of partisan glee like drunk frat boys chopping down neighborhood fences.”
Hell yes!!!!
“I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”
Grover Norquist.
And yes, we should take a hatchet job to it.
Many of the “essential people” during the shutdown” noted that with 75% of the government missing they were much better able to get their jobs done.
But in fact I do not want more efficient government. I want inefficient government.
The Nazi’s and Musolini were efficient government.
I want less government, I want as much inefficiency in the parts of government as remain.
But I want to take an axe to much of government completely eliminating large portions.
Today the FDA seems particularly useless. It is the impediment to testing, research, effortd to help people who will die otherwise.
Frankly I do not see CDC and NIH as much better.
You want to rant about this faux news that Trump cut them.
We could only wish. Since when do we reward people who did a bad job.
You want to rant about Trump – fine Trump has done lots wrong here.
But of all that has been done that is wrong, broken, ineffective – none of it is uniquely Trump.
Should CDC/NIH done a much better job stopping this at our borders ?
Absolutely. But do you honestly beleive they would not have done worse under Biden, Clinton, Obama, Bush ?
Stopping infectuous diseases at our borders is probably a legitimate role for government.
So how many people does that take ? Regardless, a tiny portion of CDC/NIH are doing the only task they have that is legitimate. Lets get rid of the rest.
The vast majority of the united states has no national parks. We only have vast national parks in the last 20 or so states that were created. We have those despite the fact that the constitution limits federal land ownership in states.
Yet, I do not find an absence of parks in my state or the north east.
There are plenty of state parks. But more than that there are plenty of private parks and recreation areas – some for profit, some run as non-profits.
And in the past several decades the federal and state government has contracted out park management – private companies PAY the government to manage state and federal parks to improve their fascilities and they reduce fees. Warren Meyer who has done very well managing state and federal parks protested when Obama shutdown the parks during the government shutdown – he noted that doing so COST the government money. He could have kept every park he managed open indefinitely and PAID the government to do so.
Turn the parks over to the states or sell them as the constitution requires.
Has the Bureau of indian affairs done such a hot job ?
The VA ?
It should be clear from the last could of years the FBI is nearly useless.
Why do we have them ? What purpose do they serve that is not the job of the states ?
I expect my local police to deal with bank robbers and murderers.
Why do we need the FBI ? To go after Russian bloggers and FAIL to get them ?
“You need to compare Sweden to a state with a comparable popultation, say Virginia. Or any other individual state with 9M -10M population. Swedens largest city has less than a million. Compare Swedens 9M population to a state whose largest city is less than 1M.”
So large cities are a bad idea ? That seems to be true. So why are
Also, in Sweden kids leave home and get small apartments at 18-19. Average age. In USA it is average 26 yrs old. Last Swedes are much more ” loners”, usually having small groups of friends, living in smaller towns with less interaction in larger groups.
A much different lifestyle, demographic and population.
So they have 6000+ cases. Virginia has less than 2000.
5 Weeks ago the Flatulent Fraud was poo-pooing the seriousness of the virus.
Today the Petulant Putz ignores the advice of the CDC and Fauci and others to wear face masks in public because it will help stop spreading the disease, and will not wear one himself – because he doesn’t want to. So there!
Do you know what “advice” means ?
You constantly – and not just with Covid19 act as if the “Advice” of “experts” is the same as commandments from god – well except when it is from experts that you chose to ignore – like nobel prize winning economists,
Besides weren’t your “experts” only a week ago telling us that masks were not necescary or effective ? What has changed ? You and I both KNOW that neither the actual effectiveness of masks, nor knowledge of that effectiveness has changed.
What has changed is that YOUR experts were lying – because masks were in extremely short supply and they were trying to preserve them for medical personel. Now the supply shortage is less severe.
So we already know that the “experts” will lie to us.
Neither you nor they seem to understand how important integrity is.
If you lie to people – even when you claim to do so for the common good – you loose integrity and trust.
With specific respect to Trump – how is he different from me being with my family ?
He is nearly always more than 2m away from people he does not know are not infected.
I would immagine and expect that within the whitehouse peoples temperatures are being checked regulary. That is what the Tiawanese have done very effectively.
You, the media, the left are STILL exagerating the threat of Covid19.
I would further note that Trump’s remarks were based on the advice of Faucci and others at the time – like the WHO who was saying this could not be spread between humans and that travel restrictions were counter productive.
Todate Covid19 GLOBALLY is still 2 orders of magnitude less serious than the Flu in the US alone.
When this all hit the fan and the real threat was known, Fauchi should have been fired for telling Trump and America in January this was not a trhreat. He was the expert. He is the expert everyone on the left now say has all the answers. How the hell did he get so smart now when he was so wrong in January.
I am smart enough to know one man does not have all the answers that fome across the presidents desk. They have to rely on experts in their field. This is what you get when holdovers from previous administrations are left in place.
First he tells everyone in January, dont worry.
Then he says 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 could die, scares the crap out of everyone to the point one couple drinks fish tank chemical as a preventative measure when no one said anything could prevent it.
Then almost everyday it seems like he has a different message where now 100,000 to 200,000 are going to die, except Dr Birx said yesterday it looks more like 90,000.
Who the hell does one trust?
Faucci made a mistake. Should he be fired ? I do not know.
I am not so concerned about his public remarks.
What I care more about is who and why wasn’t this stopped at our borders ?
That was the easiest means to control this. Not that, that is easy. It still would be far easier than anything afterward.
Faucci was lied to by WHO and China – but it is his job to know when it is likely he is being lied to.
At the same time I do not expect perfection from people.
There are enormous numbers of unknowns – EVEN TODAY.
Can you name a single person who has been consistently right about Covid19 ?
ONE ?
And name two websites that provide the same numbers of cases, deaths, recovered and active cases. I cant find one that supports anothers data. So what numbers do you trust if none can be verified?
It is not just about the websites.
The fact is we do not know.
I keep citing Flu numbers – but the number of people who get the flu and the number who die from it each year are guesses based on models.
We do not know.
It is near certain that the Covid19 mortality will be adjusted downwards.
We do not count people who would have died in the next 6 months regardless, when we count flu deaths. That would eliminate 2/3 of Covid19 deaths worldwide.
Nor do we test for infection by the flu – if you match the symptoms you are presumed to have the flu – even though you may well have a cold.
Further we do not know the number of people who are asymptomatic – numbers range from 25% to 90%.
We do not know the number of people who get Covid19 who are never identified as having Covid19 – either their symptoms are mild or they do not die or go to the hospital, they just work their way through it.
And all these things we do not know – mostly they are normal.
One of the reasons all this panic is fake is because there is very little we actually know about Covid19 that substantially distinguishes it from the flu.
BREAKING: Trump has fired the intelligence community’s chief watchdog, Michael Atkinson, saying he will remove whoever the he’ll he wants, because he can. Atkinson will be removed 30 days from now for doing his job and not licking Trumps toes as now required to serve in important government positions.
On the positive side of the firing, it’s good to see the pandemic isn’t distracting him from being an asshole,
Or doing his job.
Think of the Carrier captain. What is his job ? Is it to protect his Crew from Covid19 or is it to protect the country ?
A supper carrier is the CORE of US Naval power. While there are 4.000 sailors on the carrier, it is always the center of a fleet with 30 other ships and probably 50,000 sailors total.
They are not there to swab decks or go on shore leave. They are there to send a message to the entire world, to our enemies, our freinds and even those who are not quite either.
Ultimately a captains responsibility for his crew is inferior to his responsibility to protect the nation.
Even when we are not actively fighting – the carrier battle group is a deterent.
Does anyone doubt that China would invade Taiwan but for US Carrier Battle Groups ?
Covid19 is only one of Trump’s responsibilities.
Firing IC IG’s who have gone rogue is another.
Good riddance. Atkinson misapplied the law, and created a stupid mess and gigantic public spectacle where there should be one.
Next on the block should be Ciaramello – as he has no first hand knowledge of anything he is not a legitimate whistleblower and should be fired.
Vindman should be asked/force to resign his commission – he went outside the chain of command – like the Naval Captain.
Most of those in the diplomatic corp involved in Ukraine and Russia should be removed.
One of Trump’s biggest mistakes as president was NOT cleaning house at the very begining.
Recently we find that Mueller KNEW very early on that there was NOTHING to the Trump Jr. Trump tower meeting – that Trump Jr.s statements were accurate. And yet that meeting even made it into Mueller report – where he FAILED to note that he had substantial exculpatory evidence disproving the weak claims he was making.
By the way Ron, the company that produces the the special pulp 3M needs to produce the c19 disposable surgical masks, gowns and other medical products is made by Harmac Mills, in Victoria, Canada.
.Duh.
So let Canada tell that company how many they need. Cant they create their own rules.
DUH?
Nice way to treat your longest best neighbor and ally, Ron.
You want Canada to tell us to produce the special pulp required to make those surgical masks too? I bet we could produce our own supply – in about a year or two.
You constantly treat countries as if they are people.
They are not.
Businesses in canada can sell pulp to US companies or not – it is not the business of the US or canadian governments. US businesses can buy pulp from canada or elsehwere – again not the business of any government.
US companies can sell masks to US hospitals, or canadian ones or German ones or to horders.
And that price system which you eschew assures that things are allocated roughly proportionate to need, and that if the need is sufficient that production will scale up rapidly.
You keep ranting that Trump should invoke the DPA – there is a reason that Trump is trying to avoid doing that.
Trump can needle and twist and threaten and cajole GM and Ford to produce ventalators.
But ultimately the task of solving all the problems associated with maximizing the number of ventalators produced falls to GM & Ford – to an army of people who mostly know what they are doing. and who will move mountains because one way or another it is in their SELF INTEREST to do so. Either because they will directly profit from high prices or because they will profit because consumers will remember that in time of great need they were there.
But if Trump invokes the DPA – government steps in and all those decisions that GM and ford make using their knowledge are made by government – without that knowledge.
Who here doubts that fewer ventalators will be produced the more deeply government is involved ?
The same is true of this idiocy with masks and pulp and canada.
Except that not too long ago 3M was not producing many masks and gowns and …. in the US.
You were telling me that all these critical medical supplies were all coming from China and we were screwed.
While I am actually a proponent of global markets – and the government staying out of the market.
I am also an opponent of this nonsense that something that is made primarly in one place MUST be made in that place and that markets will not adapt.
American businesses and chinese businesses, and german businesses and canadian busineses should be allowed to resolve supply and demand issues on their own.
market prices are one of the primary means to resolve those scarcity.
Anyone with more than a week of Econ 101 know that free markets are the most efficient means of allocating scarce resource AND of turning scarcity into abundance.
All this stupidity of assertions that “hoarding” and “price gouging” are somehow evil is idiocy.
In the real world these actually act to smooth supply and demand. Hoarding – speculation moves goods out of a market of relative abundance to a market of relative scarcity in return for higher prices. But the market is better off – because less of something is available when it is relatively abundant and more when it is scare, “price gouging” is part of the same thing.
If you are unwilling to pay the price asked by the “gougers” – then the shortage is not that bad or you beleive it will be resolved rapidly – and if you are willing to pay their prices – they have performed a service and made MORE of a product that is now scarce available in a period it is desparately needed by buying it when it was more abundant and holding it until it was more desparately needed.
Put simply – just leave the markets alone. They work far better than anything you could devise. Even the things you think are bad, actually work towards good.
The assholes on the right, in the media and the White House, were spreading their doctrines of denial about COVID for months – only after recent polls showed Americans were growing more alarmed, not less, did they change THIS message:
Have I changed my message ?
To the extent that anything I am saying is even slightly different from a month ago, it is only because we are debating issues today we were not then.
Our government – for which Trump is ultimately responsible FAILED to stop this at our borders. Something that was their job and was a job that was doable.
There are many reasons they failed to do so – including lies by China and a culture within FDA, CDC, NIH that emphasiszes the wrong things. Quite litterally in myriadss of areas they compromise the overall safety of americans by fixating on perfect safety of products and tests.
That failure has already occured. We will go back and do a post mortem on it later and hopefully determine responsibility and do a better job in the future.
Today Covid19 is inarguably worse in this country than it would have been had government done its job.
But it is STILL many orders of magnitude below the flu.
Americans have become alarmed – absolutely – because you and your ilk have fanned panic and hysteria,
So lets be clear – this ill end.
I have no doubt when it does that YOU, the left, Trump, the media, and “experts” will declare victory. Though they will fight with each other about who is responsible, and how the other guy screwed up. Regardless, all of these groups will claim they are responsible for our salvation.
But two things will likely remain true – it will be the free choices of individuals that determined the outcome – not all those patting themselves on the back.
That there is likely to be little difference in outcome between nations that left their people free and those that did not.
And none of you will take any responsiblity for the actual damage you have done.
The numbers of people who have lost their jobs – many of whom will not get them back very quickly, some who will not get them back at all. For the businesses that are destroyed, for the increase in crime, particularly violent crime for the increase in suicides, for the increase in opiod and alcohol related deaths.
All to beat what will unlikley reach the level of a bad flu season.
Everyone is either defending or attacking Trump. No one is doing any real deep dive investigative reporting. Just grab someone tweet or sound bite and run with it. I look forward to some investigative reporter that does not have a political agenda publishing factual information and how each bit of information influenced decisions going forward.
For instance, here is the expert everyone has been and is relying on to make decision. Interview from Jan 21.
Very few people have been consistent about this from start to finish.
Large portions of what we have been told have proved false – some out of real lack of knowledge or information – and some because of outright lies.
Some of those lies were from the chinese government, some from the media, some from our own government.
Error is forgivable – though we should seek to prevent such error in the future.
Who here wants to discuss the most effective means of thwarting something like this in the future ?
I doubt any of the never trumpers – because the simplest least costly means of preventing something like this is at the borders.
You and I have fought repeatedly about China. But we do not mostly disagree about China’s behavior – only the remedy.
I do not know if in a year US companies will have relocated alot of medical production to the US. But I expect that we will see a significant portion leave china – or atleast START elsewhere.
Nor will medical be the only area.
And this is where we disagree – the free markets will “punish” China.
Government involvement is unnecessary.
You have said that americans should not buy junk from China.
Well lets see what they do over the next few years.
They are free to buy from china or not.
Reminder not to listen to President Slow & Stupid:
On March 9th he said the common flu kills tens of thousands each year and “nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on,” A day later he pledged that the virus would “go away. Just stay calm.”
Now he’s recommending people use hydroxychloroquine as a preventative. Get some if you can, he says. Do Trump family members and /or friends have financial stakes in the companies that produce the drugs? We’ll never find out the answer to that as long as he’s in office, firing investigators who could look into that kind of behavior.
Each of the things he said that you noted is either absolutely true or probably true.
The flu does kill as many as 70K people in the US each year and nothing gets shut down.
This will go away one way or another eventually.
There appears to be evidence that hydroxychloroquine is a preventative, Also zinc, and high doses of vitamin C.
None of these are expensive.
Maybe the Trump’s have money in drug companies – but from their protfolio’s on Fobes if they do it is not much. Mostly they are invested in Real Estate in one way or another.
Regardless Hydroxychloroquine has been essentially generic for decades, It is readily available and cheap. So cheap it is used for aquarium cleaner.
The IC IG does not investigate that, and thus far it is those investigating the Trump’s who have turned out to be corrupt.
Regardless, if you have evidence reaching the legal definition of reasonable suspicion so long as you have that – you may open an investigation. I am hard pressed to think of any potential criminal conduct of the Trump family that would beyond the scope of the NY DA’s office and she has shown a definite interest in trying to bag Trump – but interest is not the same as evidence.
Congress is also free to investigate – if they do, hopefully they will do a better job than last time.
“ little-known Washington nonprofit has filed a lawsuit against Fox News in King County Superior Court, claiming the news station, its parent companies and owners violated the state’s Consumer Protection Act and acted in bad faith by disseminating false information about the novel coronavirus through its television news broadcasts and minimized the danger posed by the virus as COVID-19 began to explode into a pandemic.
The suit, filed on behalf of the Washington League for Increased Transparency and Ethics (WASHLITE), alleges Fox News engaged in unfair or deceptive acts by representing the coronavirus as a hoax in broadcasts that aired in February and March. Those broadcasts caused viewers to fail to adequately protect themselves or mitigate the virus’ spread, and therefore contributed to the public-health crisis and preventable mass death, the lawsuit says.”
Here’s proof:
https://twitter.com/waltshaub/status/1246577457169420295?s=21
Talk about lawsuits that will get laughed out of court.
No federal law trump’s free speech – the CPA does not apply to speach,
Bad faith is NOT a crime, it is grounds for enhanced damages in a contracts claim – which you do not have here, as well as in a tort – which is not alleged, and regardless bad faith in a tort would be while the cases is being litigated – not before.
Actually lying in the press is fully protected free speech – not that Fox actually did.
Rachel Maddow “litterally” lied about OAN, and is being sued for defamation, but OAN will likely lose. The OAN case is far batter than this.
And Finally WASHLITE virtually certainly has no standing.
And all the above presumes the allegations are true.
Which they are not.
This Hoax nonsense has been raised before – in fact this is an incredibly stupid and common tactic of both you and the left and the media.
If two words are used in a paragraph, you put them together and without context.
Obama said Guns and bibles in the same sentence – does that mean he was a evangelical 2nd amendment nut ?
Finally – you also make the same idiotic argument you make with the Russia nonsense.
That one parties words are the cause for another parties actions.
That stupid russian Social Media adds changed the election outcome – because people are stupid.
I would note that Covid19 is and likely will remain worse in highly populated BLUE regions of the country. Are you going to allege that democrats are deceived by Fox ? Or is it just that New Yorkers are stupider than people in north dakota ?
We spent the Obama administration with the left saying it was wrong to call them socialist – somehow a form of hate speech, now much of the democratic party openly embraces socialism. An arrangement that is so bad a failure that it has resulted in more deaths than any single cause ever – over 200M in the 20th century. More than all flu’s combined.
Can we sue every democrat that has ever spoken favorably about socialism ?
Ha!
There is no sane reason for the mall to be empty.
its not like there isn’t room for 2m between people.
But police are arresting people for walking their dogs, or playing tennis.
Not ways you might get Covid19
While Dithering Donnie Played With His Dongle 70 Days
Trump gets the blame early on because he is president, and even though he failed to act sufficiently – he still acted faster than any other world leader, and much faster than WHO, CDC, NI)H recomended.
But the experts the post cites get the blame for an entirely different reason – they actually failed. They made the decisions, they made the recomendations, and they are the ones who beleived China and the WHO and told Trump there was no problem.
I am not interested in the opinion of the “insiders” who actually forked up.
And the post – hypocracy. They have no shame. They are among the media who was fawning over impeachment, dismissive of Covid19 all the way through Trump’s imposition of Travel restrictions.
Jay,
You do understand this is not going to get you anywhere.
Most of the american people are not stupid.
They actually can remember back a few months.
They know that Trump acted before other world leaders.
They remember that people like you and the press were claiming Trump was truing to use Covid19 to deflect attention.
Sure Trump failed – but from start to finishing, the experts, you and the media have failed worse.
You downplayed this when you were intent on impeaching, and now you panic over it.
You claim to be moderate – but on all issues your views are extreme.
I still recall you telling me there would be 7M deaths in the US
Dave “Most of the american people are not stupid.”
OH! contraire.
Most people vote based on left or right wing media talking heads and social media information.
That is the height of stupidity.
That is why we have the President, senate and house we have today
People who watch Fox, already think like Fox, just as the people who watch MSNBC already think like MSNBC.
The advertising industry has spent fortunes and forever looking for the holy grail – getting people to buy something they do not want or need.
That is pretty close to impossible.
Once in a while they can close one in a million sales. More frequently they can persuade people to buy sooner, or to buy from GM instead of Ford, Or to buy upscale of what they intended.
But neither madison avenue, nor the DNC, nor MSNBC, nor Fox nor the Russians can get a Clinton voter to vote for Trump through advertising.
“ People who watch Fox, already think like Fox, just as the people who watch MSNBC already think like MSNBC.”
Just as the people who watch MSNBC, CNN, BloombergTV, ABC News, CBS News, PBS News, AP News, Reuter’s, — even the BBC – don’t think much at all like the people who watch Fox. Two thirds of the civilized industrial world don’t think like the people who watch Fox.
We are agreed that people are not easily persuaded. That people who listen to propoganda – regardless of its particular tilt, are not persuaded – they have already bought in.
But you still have fallen deeply into numerous fallacies.
Absolutely the people who watch MSNBC do not think as the people who watch Fox.
But membership in a group – no matter how large does not determine truth.
I do not watch much of any of these sources. But I do know that the FACTS are that as wrong as Fox and the right have been about numerous issues, they have been right far more often than MSNBC or NYT or …
I am hard pressed to think of an instances where Fox, or the Left or Trump said that someone lied – where it was not mostly obvious that they had and has ultimately been proven that they had. Conversely I can not recall an instance where MSNBC, NYT, CNN, …. have accused someone of lying that they have proven to be right.
I will try to give you the benefit of the doubt regarding errors of fact. Especially when things are not clear. I very rarely accuse people of lying about facts – because lying is intentional, and it is rare that we truly know what is in another persons head when they make a mistatement about facts.
But when you make a moral accusation about another – when you accuse someone of lying – you are either right or you are wrong – both factually and morally.
I am not a fan of Fox. But I have little room at all for NYT, MSNBC, CNN, ….
They have LIED repeatedly – and not about the facts, but they have “borne false witness” against another. They have made accusations that they did not know were true.
The burden on you to prove a fact that you claim is relatively low. We allow lattitude for reasonable and sometimes unreasonable beleif. But their is no such lattitude when you make a moral accusation of another person. If you call someone a liar 10 times – and you are wrong only once – you are still a liar too. If you call someone a liar 10 times and are never right then no decent human should respect or listen to you ever again.
So whatever the manifold flaws of Fox viewers. Those people who still believe MSNBC, NYT, … about almost anything are OBVIOUSLY significianly impaired in their moral judgement.
I really do not care how critical you are of Trump, the right, or Fox. I do not care if you might sometimes be right or have a point. You, MSNBC, … are so self evidently flawed in credibility and integrity, that the only question is why anyone is still listening ?
That question echos loudly and damns the judgement of “Two thirds of the civilized industrial world don’t think like the people who watch Fox.”
It would not matter whether it was 2/3 or 99% – it would not matter whether it was Fox or Infowars. True and false are not determined by what side you are on.
But your integrity is questionable when you hold as hero’s those with no credibility (error of fact) and no integrity (bearing false witness).
I would further note – that I do not know many people who spend their time watching Fox.
Quit often you attack me for purportedly repeating Fox talking points. That would be hard for me to do, I watch very little Fox. I watch far more of the Hill or MSNBC. I come to my arguments based on facts, logic reason – not some talking head from the left or the right.
If Fox occasionally agrees with me and gets it right – more power to them, regardless, I am not here or anywhere to repeat the pablum of the left or the right.
My ideology is truth. If progressivism was truth, I would be progressive. If conservatism was truth I would be conservative. Moderate to me means truth over politics.
Finally Jay – given the amount of glass in your house – you should not be throwing stones – not at Fox, not at Trump, not at Trump supporters. But given that you have already broken all the glass – what do you have to lose ?
“ People who watch Fox, already think like Fox, just as the people who watch MSNBC already think like MSNBC.”
Just as the people who watch MSNBC, CNN, BloombergTV, ABC News, CBS News, PBS News, AP News, Reuter’s, — even the BBC – don’t think much at all like the people who watch Fox. Two thirds of the civilized industrial world don’t think like the people who watch Fox.
https://theweek.com/cartoons/906446/00-editorial-cartoon-fox-news-delays-news-coronavirus-hoax-rhetoric
Why should anyone care what the people who watch sources that have been constantly wrong about both their factual claims and their moral claims think ?
The majority of people once thought the earth was flat, then the earth revolved arround the sun, that there were four elements, …..
I really don’t care much about Fox. But I would have more respect for a frequent fox viewer than a frequent MSNBC viewer. The latter is clearly more likely to hold views and positions and fact or moral judgement that are false.
You are still trying to sell this nonsense that Carter page is a Russian Asset – in the face of overwhelming evidence.
Page was a wannabe double agent. He reported to FBI and CIA, but the Russians thought he was an idiot – so he was not a useful double agent.
That is unless you are going to make the claim that Page is actually a tripple agent actually working for the Russians while pretending to be a double agent working for the americans while pretending to be a Russian agent ?
We now find that the Malfeasance of the FBI under Comey was not limited to the Page Warrant, Horrowitz has found serious problems with a large portion of past FBI FISA warrants – all the same errors he found in the Page warrant. Almost sufficient that you could argue that the FBI was not politically corrupt, they were just a morally bankrupt criminal organization.
And this did not stop with Comey – the FISA court is directly confronting Director Wray – because they are CLEARLY not complying with the procedures they put in place to prevent a repeat of the idiocy with the Steele Dossier and the Page warrant.
These are the people you are trying to sell as hero’s ?
I do not think that any part of government can possibly do its job properly without thorough accountability and oversite. And nothing even close to the required accountability and oversite exists.
The Military does SLIGHTLY better than the rest of government – because people Like Capt. Crozier are relieved. Because the military is less politically correct, less interested in excuses. Your the captain and for whatever reason – your ship is not available to perform – it is your fault. Hit by a Typhoon, or an infectuous virus – those are problems YOU are expected to deal with, and you will be held accountable. The Navy does not want to hear whiny ass excuses. Your ship must be ready to fight at all times. In times of conflict a captain is expected to fight his ship until it sinks beneath the waves – and if that happens in combat – even that is probably the captains fault.
I just watched “When they see us” about the Central Park Five in 1989. You should watch it, there are a few sound bites critical of Trump. Regardless, the police and prosecutors failed – Criminally.
When Fox is defending incompetence and injustice, when Fox is lying or fork’s up the facts – I will be happy to be critical, and I am sure that has happened plenty in the past.
There is plenty of evidence that Fox tolerated a sexist culture with Bill OReilly and Roger Ailes and that though they appear to have cleaned it up the Murdocks for too long turned a blind eye.
I would be happy if that were a problem unique to fox, but as we have subsequently learned that problem is commonplace throughout the media and entertainment industries.
That female coal miners in Apalachia are treated better than Female news anchors or A-List female actors.
But we can go past that issue which seems to be indifferent of politics entirely.
In terms of credibility and intergrity if Fox is getting C-‘s the rest of the media is failing.
But despite the facts – that is not how you see the world.
How can you ever expect to learn truth if you swallow when media that you trust lies to your face ? How is anyone to trust you, when all you do is level false accusations ?
According to one news story I read recently 10’s of thousands of americans traveled to Wuhan in December and early January – before there was any real awareness of this.
It is unlikely that more than 100 of them were infected at that time. but it was significantly before even China was doing much to combat this. There is strong indications that was in Washington state in early January.
There is an increasing body of evidence that this was in the US in late December or early january.
It is likely that testing will ultimate confirm or deny that – but if true, there is no possibility this could have been contained in the US.
Dithering Donnie’s Foot Dragging Administration (Not) At Work.
https://apnews.com/090600c299a8cf07f5b44d92534856bc?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP&utm_campaign=SocialFlow
Have to agree with some of this, but will wait until someone or some agency does a deep dive into the whole issue and its not media running off at the mouth or fingers that provides an independent report, if that can ever happen in this divided country.
But do you have any idea why the “expert” f’up Fauci was not mentioned in this when he was on CNN late Jan and other programs into Feb saying the risk is low. This was Feb 17, still dont worry!
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/02/17/nih-disease-official-anthony-fauci-risk-of-coronavirus-in-u-s-is-minuscule-skip-mask-and-wash-hands/4787209002/
If you own a business and your expert you hired to advise you tells you something, do you hire another expert? That was Fauci’ job! He has the whole NIH, FDA and every other alphabet medical agency to pull info.
Would you question his advice? And if so why? And if you would, why not fire him?
In early January, the WHO was telling people this did not spread between humans,
that this was a tiny outbreak in a food market in Wuhan.
That there was no need for concern.
In Early January China was encouraging people from all over the world to come to Wuhan for Chinese New Year.
Please find me a single “expert” in early january that was deeply concerned about this.
Every single nation in the world and every government and every world leader failed to prepare.
Very few – a handlful – in the entire world did better than Trump and the US.
Did Trump fail ? Absolutely – everyone did, including you.
Now we have shifted from insufficient concern to hysterical panic and idiotic blame.
In early January democrats had the attention of the entire country focused on Faux Impeachment and were calling Corona “wag the dog”.
https://townhall.com/columnists/wayneallynroot/2020/04/05/im-mad-as-hell-and-im-not-going-to-take-this-anymore-n2566345
Has anyone heard from or about Priscilla?
Or know how to check how she is?