RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2020/03/19/dangerous-curves/

If you weren’t very ill in late January or February, you probably know someone who was. The complaints often sounded the same: A fever for days, a stubborn and unusual-sounding cough, a persistent sore throat—the severity of the symptoms seemed worse than the usual influenza.

Doctors, assuming it was a version of the seasonal flu, administered flu-fighting drugs without testing. (My college daughter was very sick with the same symptoms; her flu test was negative.) Plenty of afflicted Americans just stayed in bed without ever seeing a physician.

Obviously, anecdotal evidence that the COVID-19 illness has been around for at least the past few months isn’t enough to make the case that there’s a chance the worst days of the outbreak are behind, not ahead, of us. But data from the Centers for Disease Control seems to support the possibility that the country has been besieged by the novel coronavirus since the start of 2020.

And while political leaders and medical experts push for more and more draconian measures to “flatten the curve,” it raises some questions. Are we looking at the right “curve?” And how accurate is the current curve if it doesn’t include possible cases before the height of the hysteria began in late February and early March?

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/03/trap-white-privilege-and-rejecting-cult-jason-d-hill/

In thirty-four years of living in America, I have never faced the problem of radical racial resistance from committed individualists, many of whom fall within the conservative camp. They have mostly accepted me as an individual and treated me as an equal. My race to them was neither a qualifier nor a disqualifier, but a sociological marker which, as far as I could tell, was irrelevant to how I performed. In my experience with far-left progressives there exists an insidious racism that is often hard to diagnose. Their sense of their own whiteness required black helplessness and inadequacy to shore up a sense of guilt, which would then prompt action on their part, from which they could seek redemption and contrition.

There is unbridled hubris behind such psychic exploitation, because one needs to posit an inferior before one can masochistically experience redemption from some perceived wrong one has inflicted against another. That wrong, which the so-called progressive feels she or he has wielded, is white privilege.

https://quillette.com/2020/03/18/an-optimists-case-for-covid-19-lockdown-our-safest-and-quickest-path-back-to-normalcy/

The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared COVID-19—the acute respiratory disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus—a pandemic. And almost everywhere you look, the data appear to show a frightening exponential rise in new cases. As I write this, on March 17th, the latest available reports show that confirmed cases have doubled in Italy over the last five days. In Spain, the most recent doubling period has been just three days. In France, Germany, Switzerland, the United States, the UK, and Netherlands, the figures are four, three, three, five, three, and four respectively. When these facts are presented in graph form, the vertiginous lines suggest a world feverishly coughing its way into apocalypse.

But assuming that governments act responsibly, and absent some horrifying SARS-CoV-2 mutation, there will be no apocalypse. Stock markets and economies will suffer greatly. But even this damage can be mitigated through decisive action. The more aggressively that our leaders act to suppress the spread of COVID-19, the more quickly the crisis will pass, and the sooner we will all be able to return to normal daily life. The decisions we make now could mean the difference between a global recession and a historical event on par with The Great Depression.

The good news is that we definitely can suppress COVID-19, even if no cure or effective vaccine emerges. We know this because it already has been done in the most populous country on Earth.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/03/progressive-chatty-cathy-dolls-dont-america-bruce-thornton/

Chatty Cathy was a doll popular in the late Fifties to the mid-Sixties. Its gimmick was a string coming out of the back that when pulled played a tiny record filled with banal phrases suitable for preteen girls. The old toy strikes me as a good metaphor for the progressive media, who whatever the event or crisis, repeat the same trite and juvenile responses like “racism” or “xenophobia.”

Take the latest pull of their string, the president and some of his administration calling the coronavirus the “Wuhan virus” or “Chinese coronavirus,” or referring in any way to China as ground-zero of the pandemic. According to CNN’s Chatty Cathy in Chief, Jim Acosta (pictured above), such statements are “xenophobic” because they “stigmatize” all ethnic Chinese, even Americans of Chinese descent, most of whom have little or nothing in common with Chinese nationals other than superficial physical characteristics or surnames.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/questioning-the-clampdown-11584485339?mod=opinion_featst_pos1 Experts now agree the virus’s spread can be slowed but not contained. It will take its place among mostly seasonal respiratory infections. After a time, recurrent outbreaks will be moderated by a large number of potential carriers who have immunity from their last infection. And then we can ask some questions. The cost to […]

https://amgreatness.com/2020/03/15/america-in-a-new-upside-down-world/

Who can game the election-year politics of these chaotic times, especially the more macabre calculations of the electoral beneficiaries of the media-driven hysteria over the COVID-19?

The world is changing at a pace not seen in years, and it is no time to become captives of fear despite the real and immediate dangers we face.

The coronavirus and the ensuing panic, at least for a few more weeks, have stagnated the economy and scared global financial markets, accompanied by both collateral, and independent and simultaneous, bad news. Rumor- and panic-mongers predominate; the rational and reasonable are written-off as naïve and out of it. Thousands may die, but millions who will not are terrified into anxieties and sleeplessness that they will.

COVID-19 itself has raised fundamental questions about the merits of globalization in general, and in particular the wisdom of any sovereign nation outsourcing key industries like high-tech, pharmaceuticals, medical supplies, and food processing to an autocratic, non-transparent—and dangerous—nation like China.

The current oil glut and price crash—a result of a Saudi-Russian price war, in part directed at record U.S. production, in part due to the crumbling of OPEC, and less demand as a global public, frightened by the specter of the Wuhan virus, stays closer to home—are radically changing the relationship between oil sellers and buyers. In particular, vulnerable cash-hungry exporting countries like Iran, Russia, and Venezuela are losing clout. Interest rates are also dropping. The world at large may for a time experience historic de facto negative interest.

Trump Was Right About China

Ostensibly, all of this news should be terrible. And, of course, terrible is the reality that as I write over 6,000 people have died worldwide (out a global population nearing 8 billion) from the disease caused by the coronavirus. But that said, there will emerge winners and losers in every crisis, whether medical, economic, psychological, or political.

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/487538-fear-factor-press-and-politicians-should-help-pause-the-panic

Most people have heard of the news-business truism, “If it bleeds, it leads.” Sensational or alarming news stories have proven a profitable attention-getter since the dawn of newspapers — and, later, of radio and television — and preying on our various anxieties has been a staple of the news business ever since.

The same is true of politics: Fear and anxiety are among the surest provocations to get your political base out to vote or to support your campaign. Politicians have used those successfully since the first elections were held.

Knowing both, it sure seems as if the nonstop frightening, even terrifying news and political rhetoric being spread across the globe regarding the newest coronavirus, COVID-19, could be the mother of all cash-cows for some in the news business and in the political world.

Just as a very recent example, we have this news item: “Quarantined couple die of coronavirus two hours apart in Italy.” If the editors were looking for cheap, easy online clicks, then mission accomplished. When I saw the story as it ran this past Thursday morning, it already had well more than 200,000 views.

Those who actually bothered to read the story accompanying the sensational headline would learn that, although the couple did indeed tragically pass within hours of each other, the husband was 86 years of age and the wife, 82. For those who didn’t get that far and only consumed the headline, it was just one more fear-inducing straw being piled upon the thousands of others now sitting atop our troubled minds.

http://swtotd.blogspot.com/

What impact Covid-19 will have on the global economy no one now knows, but at least two things seem clear and will have consequences, both of which have been instrumental in keeping inflation at bay. First, the benefits of globalization and, second, the process of “just-in-time” inventory. Both bear risks.

The concept of free trade is a search for an ideal, not unlike King Arthur’s Knights’ quest for the Holy Grail. However, the reality of free trade can never be. Yet the closer we get the better all are served. Free trade is based on the concept of division of labor, popularized by Adam Smith, of labor costs, and by the availability of natural resources and of the means of shipping resources and finished goods. Theoretically, each nation should manufacture for consumption and export that which it can produce most cost-efficiently – whether the product is soybeans, oil or electronics – and import what it needs.

Easier said than done. Every country has arable land. Every country has workers skilled in multiple areas, not just in those for which they are best known. No country wants to be totally dependent on another. Exploitation and subservience are, though, unfortunately, natural conditions of man. As well, intellectual property is protected in some countries, but not in others. Rule of law does not apply evenly. Nevertheless, the goal of global trade is worthy. For one, it takes advantage of efficiencies, resources availability and labor costs. But, most important, trade requires that countries communicate and come together, and gathering is better than isolating.

Trade has reduced inflationary pressures on the price of consumables, by outsourcing manufacturing and assembly to countries with low labor costs. Medicines produced by American companies in India or China would have been more expensive if produced in New Jersey or Illinois. The same could be said of automotive parts and consumer electronic gadgets. While low prices for finished products have benefitted consumers, the losers include factory workers and lab technicians – and perhaps consumers if and when supply disruptions come. In July 2019, the U.S.–China Economic Security Review Commission invoked a Department of Commerce study that found that 97% of all antibiotics come from China. The Corona Virus, originating in Wuhan, has highlighted the disadvantage of dependency on China for something as vital as antibiotics.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/coronavirus-scary-enough-without-scaremongering/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=featured-content-trending&utm_term=first

Like the reporters and pundits who seek out the most bloodcurdling predictions regarding coronavirus, I have no expertise on infectious diseases. But I’m far more skeptical about what certain experts say — not the scientists and doctors making amazing and tangible strides in combating the disease, but the model-making policymaking experts who often dominate news stories.

Former CDC director Tom Frieden, reports the Washington Post, says the U.S. death toll for coronavirus could range anywhere from 327 (best-case scenario) to 1.6 million (worst case). As I noted, I’m not an epidemiologist. That sounds like an extraordinarily wide-ranging set of predictions which are probably contingent on thousands of factors, many of which are beyond our control. Any one of you could comfortably predict a death toll somewhere between 327–1.7 million. These numbers need context.

Because partisans such as Andy Slavitt, an Obama-era bureaucrat, are out there telling followers and reporters that “experts expect over 1 million deaths in the U.S. since the virus was not contained & we cannot even test for it.”

First of all, the virus couldn’t be “contained” because we don’t live in a tyranny where we can send in the army and force citizens to shut down society. We live a sprawling and massive country. Yet there are some — Sen. Chris Murphy and news analysts at the New York Times, for instance — who lament the fact that Donald Trump hasn’t taken dictatorial federal powers to stop coronavirus. That’s not how it works, and the president is reportedly invoking emergency powers now.

As for the million expected deaths, the New York Times reported that one of CDC’s modeled scenarios found that between 200,000-1.7 million might die during the epidemic, with 2.4 million to 21 million people requiring hospitalization. A million deaths falls into the worst-case scenario category — not the “expected” number.

To put it in some perspective, China has reported around 80,000 cases of coronavirus in a country of 1.3 billion, and the number of new cases has been dropping and the death rate plunging over the past week. Of course China can’t be trusted with numbers, and the United States can’t take authoritarian measures to contain millions of human beings as China did. But, as I write this, there have been 5,056 reported deaths in the entire world. That number is sure to spike, but as the virus moves we learn more about how to mitigate its effects. We produce vaccines. We manufacture more — and more accurate and faster — tests. The FDA just approved a new coronavirus test that is ten times faster than the one used right now. We self-quarantine: South Korea now sees more recoveries than new cases.