RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/03/19/democracy_and_bureaucracy_in_a_time_of_pandemic_142702.html

As the coronavirus spreads and the Centers for Disease Control work around-the-clock to mitigate the disaster, it’s easy to see why we need competent government agencies. We don’t always get them. The CDC and National Institutes of Health botched their initial response to the virus — and we are all paying the price. They distributed unreliable test kits and, incredibly, prevented top research hospitals from developing their own tests. They failed to plan for the now-predictable spike in demand for respirators, ventilators, and beds in intensive-care units. Only now are tests becoming widely available, long after the disease has spread. Ugh.

With the U.S. economy stalled, schools and businesses closed, and families huddled at home, the CDC, NIH, the Food and Drug Administration, and Health and Human Services are finally doing what they should have done weeks ago: cutting through their own cumbersome red tape to respond aggressively to COVID-19. President Trump, whose reelection hangs in the balance, has declared a national emergency, banned most international travel, and encouraged unprecedented collaboration between government agencies and America’s top biotech companies, which are racing to invent vaccines, treatments, and swift, reliable tests. After a month of misleading happy talk, we are finally hearing some hard, ugly truths from the White House about what to expect.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/trump-draws-praise-from-critics-for-response-to-covid-19-pandemic_3278346.html

President Donald Trump has earned praise from critics during the COVID-19 crisis, including Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

The Trump administration’s response to the CCP virus has earned criticism for bungling early attempts at testing suspected patients. But his ordering the closing of the country to people from China and many of the administration’s recent efforts have drawn praise, even from unexpected quarters.

The Epoch Times refers to the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19, as the CCP virus because the Chinese Communist Party’s coverup and mismanagement allowed the virus to spread throughout China and create a global pandemic.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/03/18/bloomberg-promises-to-spend-40

Michael Bloomberg (D-N.Y.), the former New York City Mayor and failed presidential candidate, has vowed to spend at least $40 million to help combat the spread of the coronavirus in Africa and other countries besides the United States, according to ABC News.

Bloomberg made the announcement on Twitter, saying that he and his company are “committing to $40M to prevent and slow [coronavirus’s] spread around the world, particularly in Africa.” Bloomberg said that he will be partnering with international organizations such as the World Health Organization and Vital Strategies, as well as former CDC Director Thomas Frieden.

In an additional statement, Bloomberg said that “millions of lives depend on getting the coronavirus response right – and so does the economic and social health of communities around the world.” The billionaire made no reference to any efforts to stop the spread in his own country, the United States.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-sought-to-expand-virus-drug-tests-over-fda-objections-11584545251

WASHINGTON—The White House considered issuing an executive order greatly expanding the use of investigational drugs against the new coronavirus, but met with objections from Food and Drug Administration scientists who warned it could pose unneeded risks to patients, according to a senior government official.

The idea to expand testing of drugs and other medical therapies was strongly opposed by the FDA’s senior scientists this week, the official said, and represented the most notable conflict between the FDA and the White House in recent memory.

Asked about The Wall Street Journal’s report at a press briefing Wednesday, President Trump replied that he hadn’t seen the article, but added: “We are making a lot of progress with therapeutics.”

Mr. Trump told reporters that his administration is expanding access to tests for the virus, and later said there would be a news conference Thursday involving the FDA.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/03/who-needs-to-be-held-responsible-us-coronavirus-numbers-including-asymtomatic-patients-shows-mortality-rate-0-2-to-0-8-and-not-3-4-as-reported-by-who/ The controversial Ethiopian politician and Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, claimed in a press conference in early March that the fatality rate for the coronavirus was many multiples that of the fatality rate of the common flu.  This egregiously false premise has led to the greatest economic panic in world history.

Questions about the Coronavirus More data is critical in understanding the virus in general and in particular its transmission in particular countries. Anyone who looks at rates of morality and lethality of influenza and related pneumonia, especially in the elderly and infirm, can be shocked at the wide variances between particular countries.     Reliable […]

https://asiatimes.com/author/david-p-goldman/

Investors had no place to hide as stock and bond markets tanked simultaneously for the first time since the 1980s, when markets offered no hedges against collapsing values. In 2008, bond prices rose sharply as stock markets crashed. Now bonds offer no refuge against collapsing stock prices. The difference is that total US public debt outstanding has risen from about $9 trillion at the beginning of 2008 to $23.5 trillion today. 

With equities down nearly 6% in Europe and US markets poised to open with similar losses, European bond yields soared and US bond yields rose, as governments prepared trillions of dollars of new debt financing to support economic stimulus and market bailout programs. Between March 9 and this morning, so-called real yields, that is, the yield on inflation-protected US government securities, had risen from a trough of negative 1% to positive 0.4%, the fastest yield spike in market history.

https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-fiasco-in-the-making-as-the-coronavirus-pandemic-takes-hold-we-are-making-decisions-without-reliable-data/ John P.A. Ioannidis is professor of medicine, of epidemiology and population health, of biomedical data science, and of statistics at Stanford University and co-director of Stanford’s Meta-Research Innovation Center. A nurse holds swabs and a test tube to test people for Covid-19 at a drive-through station set up in the parking lot of the […]

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/03/sorry-history-socialism-bruce-hendry/

Below is Part 8 of a new essay written by Bruce Hendry: Democrats, Progressives and Socialists. Stay tuned for the ensuing chapters. [See links to previous chapters below this article].

19. Economic Fundamentals.

One of the dangers to our democracy is the total lack of understanding of basic economics. Most K-12 teachers can’t teach economics because they don’t know it. Yet every organization from a children’s lemonade stand to the largest company, and of course to a country, is subject to immutable and unseen laws of economics. How can you possibly understand the implications of your political decisions if you don’t have any understanding of their economic impact?

Economics is simply the quantification of human behaviors and decisions. Economic conservatives believe in making decisions based upon facts, logic and the idea of a free market system. Democrats believe in making decisions based upon wishful thinking, emotions and socialism. Both groups say that they are for equality for all citizens and are against discrimination in their societies, but they have different views of what is meant by “equality.” The free market conservative group thinks that everybody should have an equal opportunity to succeed, while the socialist Democratic group believes in equal outcomes, enforced by the power of the government.

Understanding beginning economic theory is foundational to understanding what actually works in a society. This understanding is necessary in order to dispel the wishful thinking, denial, and community-held mythologies that result in electing officials that codify things that don’t work or are actually hurtful to those that the laws are supposed to help.