President Xi went on the record, essentially saying that it was an accidental release from their own bug factory yesterday. Some media outlets picked it up. If the White House suggests that it's an engineered product, I think that the DJI will tank and drag a lot of stocks with it.His perspective is that the economic damages are the most frightening thing about this likely pandemic. With the field that the Evil Party has put forward, the party is exceptionally weak. I have no faith in polls 9 months ahead of the general election. In a year that's looking like we could see a presidential sweep along the lines of Reagan's second term, I look at the energy of the two parties. There's little reason for Stupid Party members to go to the primaries or caucuses, yet Trump's vote total in New Hamster was a record high for an incumbent president. Everybody is crowing about Bernie's victory in Nevada, but the numbers are pathetic. Nevada has over 2 million adult residents over 18. Of those 2,000,000, the early voters measured 76,000, a mere 3.8%. A bit over 6,000, 0.3%, voted for Bernie. In New Hampshire, a smaller state, over 120,000 people voted for Trump.
There seems to be only one thing that could threaten that reelection sweep, and that's if the Kung Flu gets really bad and it appears the CDC has completely screwed the response. Today, the stock markets started reacting to the cases showing up in Europe (Italy, Austria, Russia) and the Mideast (Iran, Lebanon). As a result, the major indices were down. If China stays shut down for more months, their economy will crater and the rest of the world with it. I'm talking not just recession but '08 levels or even worse. Then you have this swell of people wanting bigger government and wanting government to run healthcare motivated even more by fear of the virus. (Yes, they could be mad at the CDC for not responding properly but still want the CDC to be bigger and control more!) If people are desperate for medical care and a wild-haired socialist is promising unlimited free health care, that might attract enough voters to turn things.
On the other hand, as Larry points out, “...when you look at how many actual votes he received in Nevada, the Donkey enthusiasm even for free stuff, is very tepid.”
Today's email from FreePressers linked to an article which contained this reference:
Chinese supreme leader Xi Jinping on Feb. 14 told an emergency meeting in Beijing that a national system to control biosecurity risks was needed “to protect the people’s health.”That's about 8 days earlier than what LL is talking about, but signals the same idea.
Xi called lab security a “national security issue.”
While not actually admitting that the deadly coronavirus that is devastating large swathes of China had escaped from one of the country’s bioresearch labs, “evidence emerged suggesting that this is exactly what happened,” Steven W. Mosher wrote in an analysis for the New York Post on Feb. 22.
President for Life Xi at the conference where he talked about lab security as a “national security issue.” Licensed under Wikimedia Commons N/A
If Xi had said what was alleged, that would be front-page breaking news worldwide 24/7.
ReplyDeleteSo I'ma go with someone's analysis has become a wee bit eccentric, at this point.
Even nothing that an accidental lab release may be precisely what actually happened, the greater point is that Xi didn't say that.
DeleteLarry uses some sources that most of us don't have, but hopefully he'll comment here, since he reads here regularly, too.
DeleteXi did obfuscate, but he's Chinese. That's what he's expected to do. And while he's beating around the bush, they're treating the virus as a threat to national security, which it is. Actions speak louder than words. We don't know much about the actual morbidity rate in the worker's paradise, but it's the exceptionally long incubation period that creates the persistence along with the virus' ability to live on clean dry surfaces for almost a week.
DeleteI'm not asking anyone to believe me. Wait and see. Maybe somebody ate a bat. Or maybe somebody walked out of the bug factory with a hitchhiker and the trolly ran off the rails. Irrespective, the Chinese are not treating this like just another cold and flu season are they?
I'm not saying you're wrong at all, LL. Just that you've tiptoed off the printed page a tad, and calling his words an "admission" is a bit beyond bare interpretation. Not speaking idiomatic Mandarin myself, I'll leave it at that.
DeleteEvents may very well bear your interpretation out, which wouldn't surprise me at all, but that still isn't saying Xi copped to them stepping on their weenies here, openly nor obliquely. Such would pretty much open the ball on economic and diplomatic sanctions and other retaliation amongst nuclear powers and expulsion from the UN Security Council, for openers. And then things get ugly.
But let's grant your point, arguendo.
Nota bene the dearth of any authoritative scientific commentary from the CDC, HHS, ASAMRIID, Korea, Japan, Oz, Italy, or WHO, et al, about something that should be rapidly confirmable with nothing more complicated than microscopy and basic biolab analysis, and something that was or should have been known to them all nearly two months ago.
So there would be two possibilities:
A) TPTB are capable (and did) recognize an obvious bio-engineered virus escape into the world at large.
B) TPTB are not capable (and did not) recognize the escape of an obvious bio-engineered virus into the world at large.
Either way, the follow-on conversations should be breathtaking.
I'll grab some chips and a cold drink.
Talk amongst yourselves.
No other government is treating it like cold and flu either, although they may SAY they are-my guess is they have intel and are worried big time.
ReplyDeleteWhether or not this virus 'accidentally' got out or was being tested and things got out of hand is a question we are likely never going to have answered. What is quite simply beyond question is that this virus is MANUFACTURED. It's a coronavirus that has DNA markers from the HIV Retrovirus added to it. That's something that happens in a test tube....not the real world. Another question that the Chinese will NEVER answer is why.....what was the goal of this research. It would seem highly probable that this virus is the result of bioweapons experimentation, with the question of course being WHO was the intended target for this malady....another question they will NEVER answer.
ReplyDeleteAs for the effects of this on both the market and the upcoming election...nobody knows for sure. The market has already demonstrated it's unease with the news about this virus. But markets react all the time, to both real and imagined problems. Over the short term it will probably fluctuate. Over the long haul I doubt the effects will be significant....unless the morbidity of this disease changes. As for the election......the facts as usual really aren't relevant. At least not to the commie left and their media whore accomplices. No matter what reality is Trump WILL be blamed for any negative outcomes, real or perceived. ALL that matters to the left is retaking power and ANY lie that serves that agenda is acceptable.
I don't see this hurting Trump, even if it spreads here. Most voters, even low information voters, are at least smart enough to understand that a superbug that got loose in China and then spreads everywhere including here is not Trump's fault. In fact, in times of crisis and perceived danger, most people, whether they admit it or not, would prefer to have a strongman in charge. Every one of the Democrat hopefuls come across as weaklings. Because they are.
DeleteI already have libs screaming that its spreading because Trump cut the NSC (National Security Council) position for outbreak control and also cut funding to the CDC. Doesn't matter that most of the CDC wouldn't help anyway or the "outbreak stopper" isn't a security issue but it is a health issue and HHS and CDC should be able to do it and are still staffed with idiots that won't fix anything. Their idea of outbreak control is stockpiling 10% of the estimated needed supplies. Genius. As Aesop says, "Top. Men."
DeleteIs that a cut from this year's budget (passed in '19) or in the new proposed cuts for next year's budget that came out two weeks ago and haven't even been voted on yet? I mean a real cut or an imagined cut?
DeleteLike I said, the CDC could have screwed the pooch completely but they'd still want more power for it. Because moar, bigger gubmint is always the answer.
``... if the Kung Flu gets really bad and it appears the CDC has completely screwed the response. ''
ReplyDeleteThere is already no doubt that the CDC has already completely screwed the response. They are checking for fevers to identify a disease that is infections for days or weeks before symptoms appear. They did not push hard to quarantine all travelers from China back in December/January. They are not pushing hard to quarantine all international travelers today. In short, they have done nothing but pass happy-gas, and continue to do nothing useful.
^^ That, right there.
DeleteThis time, every time.
They're the government. First. last, always.
Screwing the pooch is what they do.
Which is it? 'government always screws the pooch' or 'without government nothing can be achieved'? Government is good? Government is bad? Good/Bad/Good/Bad/Good/Bad/Good/Bad
DeleteIf we flex the cognitive dissonance enough, maybe it will crack from fatigue and the belief contrary to observed track record will fall off.
Subtlety is lost on tiny minds.
DeleteBut consistency is their hobgoblin.
Government is always bad.
No government is always worse.
"That government governs best which governs least"...ring any bells?
All I have on my side of the argument is all of recorded human history for six millennia.
Also the combined arguments of such intellectual lightweights as Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, Hamilton, and Madison.
Not to mention Hobbes, Locke, etc., upon whose philosophical shoulders the former stood.
All you have is gainsaying.
Best wishes with your argument.
When last I looked, we were still waiting for you to lay out the advances seen under anarchy from several posts ago.
Cat got your tongue?
Government is always bad. / No government is always worse.
ReplyDeleteRight, we're making progress in our analysis. So that U-shaped curve of badless which you postulate has a minimum of bad at some small amount of government. Described in some way which many can understand, exactly how small of a government is minimum bad? Does that government have "geographic borders"? Does it collect "tariffs" or "taxes", or have a monopoly on roads or schools?
Jefferson was a moral lightweight. He was a serial rapist of that young woman whose mother was raped by his father-in-law. Which is not to say he wasn't a nerd, I loved his rotary turntable to keep his place in several books.
Xi is the chief in blame in china. peoples liberation army is not answerable to Xi. Xi has little control of the actions of the PLA. Behind the closed doors, the PLA does what is best for PLA, not china. the job Xi has is to cover up for PLA. or Xi would be sent packing. Xi stands in public with a bayonet to his neck as would any future political leader in china. I am not saying it is not his fault, it's his job to accept blame so the lords of the PLA stay hidden behind the big cloak of obscurity. PLA has it's own line of funding outside government. it cannot be threatened by politicians internal to china. anything you by from china is built by a company in china owned in part by PLA. nothing is manufactured in china that is not tested by PLA to see what military applications it might have for the PLA. whether an Iphone or shoes it doesn't matter. Thus, PLA is self funded by industries it owns. If a little bug escaped from one of its labs, so what.
ReplyDelete