Time to read THE LAST CENTURION?

As a side note that has “absolutely” nothing to do with the pandemic currently raging in Italy.
The Norwegian government has extradited Iraqi Mullah Krekar to Italy, where he is wanted for establishing a Jihadist group that has links to both al Quaeda and the Taliban.
Fate might be fickled at times, but she also has a sense of humor!

gcomeau wrote:

n7axw wrote:Last night I saw a news segment suggesting that Italy and New York might be peaking and heading down the other side... anybody else pick up on that?

Don

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Nope.

The new case rate in Italy has started decelerating slightly, as has New York, indicating the lockdownscare hopefully having a flattening effect... but neither is close to going down the other side of the curve.

Yeah, that is what I saw. The part of the peak being reached or approaching soon was speculative, but hopeful. That is not a completely unreasonable thing if the rate of increase is slowing.

Don

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TFLYTSNBN wrote: China knew because it had escaped from their biowarfare lab.

If we're going to speculate, let's have a bit of fun with it... the whole corovid thing originated out of o hole in TFLY's hip pocket.... It was supposed to be a secret weapon aimed at liberals, but it got away!

Don

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TFLYTSNBN wrote:On the other hand, the US now has more confirmed cases than any other country including China. The US also has more intensive care beds than any country. Thanks to President Trump, the US is massively increasing production of medical equipment and supplies. The US is wetill behind China in production, but the US didnt know what this beastie is back in December. China knew because it had escaped from their biowarfare lab.

Using documented specifics, please explain the bolded portion of your statement above.

I'm just going to ignore that ending bit of nonsense except to point out my earlier prediction that pointing to the actual research showing this virus was not artificially engineered wouldn't slow down the conspiracy theorizing in any way has been proven true.

Didn't Trump specifically say he wasn't going to use the power that would have forced that to happen because it was already happening?

Annachie wrote:Didn't Trump specifically say he wasn't going to use the power that would have forced that to happen because it was already happening?

Yep. He did literally nothing to push increased production of medical equipment. He left it to the states to scramble for resources themselves at the last minute instead of doing *any* advance preparation after he was briefed on the dangers of the virus months ago, inciting a bidding war between the states and at one point having that result in one of the governors having to point out that Trump was telling them to go out and buy their own equipment then having the federal government outbid them for it so they couldn't get any.

And all this despite his administration having inherited from Obama...


1. A pandemic response team on the NSC that Trump disbanded
2. A pandemic playbook that outlined steps for dealing with all of this specifically including instructions to prep stockpiles of PPE *and specifically ventilators* when there is a threat of a pandemic.
3. A full preparatory exercise on pandemic response given to the incoming Trump admin personnel, but over half of the people who participated in it have been sacked or quit from the administration since then.

It's been a complete clusterfuck.

gcomeau wrote:
Yep. He did literally nothing to push increased production of medical equipment. He left it to the states to scramble for resources themselves at the last minute instead of doing *any* advance preparation after he was briefed on the dangers of the virus months ago, inciting a bidding war between the states and at one point having that result in one of the governors having to point out that Trump was telling them to go out and buy their own equipment then having the federal government outbid them for it so they couldn't get any.

"The marvels of totally free market", yeah. Deregulation may be a good thing, but not when the goal is to return the economy in 1910s.

gcomeau wrote: ...He did literally nothing to push increased production of medical equipment. He left it to the states to scramble for resources themselves at the last minute instead of doing *any* advance preparation after he was briefed on the dangers of the virus months ago, inciting a bidding war between the states and at one point having that result in one of the governors having to point out that Trump was telling them to go out and buy their own equipment then having the federal government outbid them for it so they couldn't get any. ...

Ahh yes, but it sure did look good to his electorate!
Cleaning up all the “unnecessary” and “wasteful” federal expenditures!
…and now that clean-up has come back to bite his ass.

Dilandu wrote:

gcomeau wrote:
Yep. He did literally nothing to push increased production of medical equipment. He left it to the states to scramble for resources themselves at the last minute instead of doing *any* advance preparation after he was briefed on the dangers of the virus months ago, inciting a bidding war between the states and at one point having that result in one of the governors having to point out that Trump was telling them to go out and buy their own equipment then having the federal government outbid them for it so they couldn't get any.

"The marvels of totally free market", yeah. Deregulation may be a good thing, but not when the goal is to return the economy in 1910s.

Exactly. Well said. A completely unregulated market always messes up sooner or later. Although landing on 1910 would be an optimistic forecast. Right now we are headed for 2008, or even 1929.

Don

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I'm actually wondering if "right to work", no universal healthcare and no mandatory paid sick leave for employees in the US will survive COVID-19.

Right now, the US has a workforce (especially in the low wage secotr) which will try to soldier through any ailments for fear of losing their jobs and income.

If a European worker gets sick (especially in these times), they call in sick and stay at home because they know that their employment and salary is secure.

If a US worker gets sick, they can't do the same and they have to decide between their lifelihood - and other peoples lives if they *do* have COVID-19.



This ridiculous system is a perfect breeding ground for this disease because it basically guarantees that the infected and highly contagious, but only mildly affected individuals will come to work and expose coworkers and customers instead of sheltering in place. Because since there's no legal protection whatsoever in place, they can't afford to do the right thing.