anticlimactic
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VIRUS : ADVERTISING
There do seem to be some obvious casualties of the virus : Uber, Airbnb, WeWork, Transport, Autos, Etc.
It would seem to benefit online companies as people stay at home more BUT companies like Google and Facebook are sustained by advertising.
Who will be advertising?
Some companies will have nothing to sell, others will be able to sell anything they can produce. Small companies will be cash-strapped. If people can’t work, or fear they will not be able to in the future, then they will concentrate on the essentials, which don’t really need advertising.
A lot of advertising revenue could simply disappear, some of it for good.
VIRUS
BEDS – It seems desirable that virus patients are kept out of normal hospitals to prevent more infections. It struck me that buildings suitable as temporary hospitals are hotels! Considering how badly hotels are [or will be] affected I would imagine owners would be glad to rent out these places.
Obvious issues are portable oxygen supplies, portable ventilators and staff. Care may be minimal but better than nothing.
ALTERNATIVE ENDINGS – I would suggest that older patients be offered fatal doses of opioids! It may be a better option than suffocating to death.
ALTERNATIVE TREATMENT – A previous neighbour who is an electronics genius made a device to ‘cure’ him of the flu. It worked like a taser but used square waves. He was an odd person so I put it down as a crank idea but some time later an item on TV said that square waves were used to sterilise wine in some way so it may not be quite as cranky as I thought! He claimed it worked and it would be interesting to know if it does or not.
BIDEN FOR PRESIDEMENTIA
I still don’t see how anyone could vote for Biden, but they are! While Sanders may not be out of the race he would need an incredible lead to fight off the super-delegates, and this now seems extremely unlikely.
The odds are that Biden will be the DNC candidate.
Also current events are weakening Trump so Biden has a good chance of being elected President! All Biden has to do is to stay alive until the election.
I suspect that is ALL that Biden has to do. After the election ‘others’ may take over the actual running of the country. I became suspicious that Obama spent so much time on the golf course as it seemed he was saying ‘I am just a figurehead’!
This makes it critical as to who is nominated as vice-president. The two names I have seen mentioned are Michelle Obama and, of course, Hillary! I read that the Clintons have bought up the DNC debts they may want a good return on their investment! I fear the worst!
Given the geriatric nature of US politicians and presidential candidates the virus may determine the future of the world!
SYRIA – CAN WE WRAP THIS UP PLEASE!
Realistically Assad/Putin have won. Can everyone just accept that!
Everyone should work to ending the war and stabilising Syria.
The EU can stop all sanctions against Syria and pull out any forces in the area. Also stop any weapons supplies to the terrorists. The EU is being destabilised by the refugees and so it is their own interest to at least have the possibility of them returning to their homeland. If they don’t then the EU deserves all the refugees Erdogan sends.
Turkey should stop assisting the terrorists and actually try and restore Idlib to Syrian control. Erdogan complains about hosting millions of refugees but has been instrumental in creating them. By stabilising Syria it should be possible for them to eventually return home.
The US is a lost cause but if they are completely surrounded at least it should be possible to stop any oil leaving and so make their presence pointless.
No-one is benefitting from the war in Syria so the sooner it is brought to a close the better.
BIDEN
Apart from his questionable actions in Ukraine there are claims of dementia. I don’t understand how anyone could vote for him. He certainly seems to be damaged goods.
I did not understand why the DNC would try and get him elected when it does not seem he would be capable of being president. Then I thought perhaps that was the point! The US would be electing the VICE president as president.
A great way of making a president without all the hassle and expense of a campaign AND bypasses the nuisance of democracy!
Election
It is now officially a geriatric election. Is this the best the US can offer?
Given their age and the coronavirus it is looking more like a tontine [or deadpool!]
SANDERS
If somehow Sanders is sidelined by the DNC then I would think he does have another option : create a new party!
He could create a Social Democrat Party [SDP].
Macron did this very successfully in France. Many are fed up with the usual parties so it could prove to have a tremendous attraction.
Sanders has little to lose by doing this, but younger politicians may have to think hard before risking everything to join him.
There does seem to be a need for a socialist element in American politics. Most manufacturing jobs were lost to automation, not offshoring. AI will bring about the next wave of job losses.
While truck drivers are cited as the first to go I think the main losses will be in white collar jobs such as lawyers and traders.
What happens in a society where almost no one has a job? If no one can afford to buy anything then manufacturing dies. We would move to a pre-industrial society with a small number of the extremely wealthy with a small service class to pander to their needs, and everyone else left to survive as best as they can.
Do the unemployed just curl up and die? The distribution of wealth will need to be tackled, which is where someone like Sanders will have a general appeal.
KARMA and the VIRUS
While I do not believe in karma it is a useful concept.
– Russia was excluded from the Olympics on very dubious grounds and now it seems unlikely they will go ahead
– The US has bases all over the world and now they will create a pipeline for transferring the virus to the US
– The US has been imposing sanctions at an increasing rate and now may suffer the same effect as sanctions themselves!
– The US health sector was tailored to maximise profit over healthcare meaning treatment for the virus would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars so very few would go for treatment and so maximising the spread of the virus [unless they bring in universal healthcare!]Russian ‘Disinformation’
The US is upset that some think they created the virus.
Is it plausible?
One report claims that the US spent 100 billion dollars on bio-warfare and that they have worked with bat viruses. It is racially targeted in that it is most deadly to the Chinese [and Japanese]. What horrors have these people created? It is pretty certain they will have created COVID-19 type viruses.
Russiagate, etc.
When the security services had admitted they had totally failed to prevent Russian interference, and had done nothing about it when they ‘discovered’ it, I was ‘surprised’ when the senior officers of these organisations were not sacked for incompetence!
That may change!
VIRUS
As I mentioned yesterday the deadliness of the virus is dependent on race. Here is a chart with a patchy indication as to risk.
https://www.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/1000-genomes-project-covid-risk.jpg?itok=_I2boSuu
Most at risk are the Japanese and Chinese, although I would imagine most far eastern countries will be high risk. There is a gap to lower risk countries, which I would say in descending order is the Indian sub-continent, possibly South America, Africa, and lowest is Europe [Caucasians].
The disease seems to spread in every way possible : by air, contaminated surfaces, touch, and it appears anything leaving the body will be contaminated [Sputum, blood, stools].
China may be massaging the figures but that is justified if it is meant to prevent panic. China is in a horrific position. No matter what the figures are it is still just a tiny fraction of the population, and they are already overwhelmed, as any country would be.
Given that the Japanese are equally at risk it will be interesting to see how they cope, even with the advantage of the knowledge gained so far. I think the chance of the Tokyo Olympics going ahead will be slim.
* Will Airbnb survive the virus? How many people will want to, or be allowed to, travel.
This virus is racist!
It attack the ACE2 receptors and the Chinese have the highest number of these while Caucasians have the least. This makes any idea that the Chinese ‘weaponised’ this virus absolutely ridiculous.
While it is deadly to the Chinese the disease may be much milder for Caucasians, in fact some Caucasians may just become carriers without having any symptoms.
This opens the question of the genetic makeup of various races. I would imagine surrounding countries would have a similar risk to the Chinese, not sure about Indians or Africans, etc. This could determine how badly any country will be affected.
CAN AMAZON SURVIVE THE VIRUS?
If infections take off in any country Amazon operates in then what will be the effect?
– Can you be sure the warehouse people are not leaving viruses on the packaging
– The same applies to delivery drivers [If delivery services still exists]
– Can the goods themselves be contaminatedAlso I feel that people in fear of infection will be less inclined to consume except out of necessity, such as food.
Online retail could be as badly affected as traditional retail.
CRUISE SHIP IN JAPAN
Not sure what the quarantine is supposed to achieve – they keep them on board UNTIL they develop the disease and THEN move them on to land!!!
DEMOCRAT VOTING
If they want to send the results electronically then a simple text message would be sufficient. The texts could be shown to the candidates’ representatives before sending, and copies sent to all candidates.
At headquarters all the results would be fed into a simple spreadsheet :
Candidate / voting area / votes / delegates.
It just doesn’t seem that complicated!
I am not quite sure I understand the almost joy in trying to show the virus is far worse than reported. Even if the figures are false it does not change reality. How bad can it be to need to hide the true figures. If you take the ‘deaths’ versus ‘recovered’ shown then the mortality rate would be about 27%. Over 2 billion deaths globally.
Hopefully it is not that bad – no more than 10%, which the world could survive, especially if it mainly affected the sick and the elderly. One article did suggest it would be a good thing if all the baby boomers were wiped out! [Helps reduce the pensions problem and healthcare costs, etc.]
It does seem to be a global issue and not just China. The British holiday makers in France catching the virus from someone returning from Singapore! It shows that blockading China is not enough, all travel would need to be suspended to slow down the spread.
It is interesting that the British were in a ski resort, which is cold. Most colds and flu are spread in Winter and I wondered if this virus could be affected by that. What happened with the Australians who were affected? Did they infect anyone else in Australia? Also, apparently no cases in Africa or South America. Travellers may not actually have been tested, but nor are there reports of secondary infections.
As a Baby Boomer with health issues I have a keen interest in this topic!
WEAPONISING
Perhaps 20 years ago I read an article in New Scientist about a South American fly. Its’ flesh eating maggots preyed on live animals, The US had a successful campaign to eradicate it from the wild, and the only remaining flies were held by the CIA. Then they appeared in Libya!
This shocked and horrified me and since then I have been wary about what the US would do if it felt justified [and they ALWAYS feels justified!].
In recent times the story has surfaced about a US lab weaponising Lymes disease by infecting tics [a long time ago]. They released some tics on the island where the lab was, not thinking that tics could hitch a ride on birds. The number of infections in the US is still rising.
To try and justify a war against Iraq someone made anthrax attacks against Americans. They knew Iraq had anthrax because as an ally the US had gifted it to them [and Pakistan]. The FBI realised it was a highly weaponised version which was only found in US labs,
In a US biowarfare lab a researcher was killed by the Ebola virus she was working on. Restrictions were made on the labs in the US so they created biowarfare labs in other countries. What have these labs done with their time?
More recently there has been a lot of concern that the US military are looking at the techniques to develop diseases which attack a specific genetic type. The Russians were suspicious when the US were keen to obtain samples of Russian blood.
The US has a long history of weaponising diseases, and one key thing would be to ensure human to human transmission if it did not have that capability.
It is hardly suspicious that the Chinese have a lab to study viruses given their problems with them, but this is a far cry from weaponising them. Why would the Chinese even want to do that? The disease was associated with the fish market before it was realised how serious it was, If it was weaponised I would say it was not by the Chinese.
My Tencents Worth
I think the alarming figures are fake news.
Most importantly, why on earth would Tencent have access to this information?! If you want to suppress information you do not give it to an internet company!
Also, it takes time between developing symptoms and dying. It implies more people died than had developed the disease!
One thought is that the 154023 refers to people under observation and the 24589 are confirmed cases.
It could even be a deliberate fake. We are talking about a single static image.
Finally, the reaction is ridiculously bland. It seems more about pointing at the Chinese government and NOT that these figures would imply a disease much more deadly than the Black Death and which would kill over half of the World’s population!!!!
VIRUS
TenCent may have briefly published the real figures before quickly changing to the official figures.
Article concludes :
“Then again, if China indeed had over 154,000 cases and almost 25,000 deaths as of 5 days ago, then no attempts to mask the full extent and true severity of the pandemic have any hope of “containing” the truth”
Okay, that’s it for me! there is no point commentating on this again.
IOWA – This could be fun!
“I am now hearing that the Sanders campaign sent workers to every caucus to record the live results.
The DNC was unaware of this. When their early tallies did not match the recorded results from campaign workers, his campaign had 5 lawyers contact the DNC. Now they’re meeting.”
VIRUS
The mortality rate shown in the spreadsheet is completely meaningless. You need to know the average time between diagnosis and death and compare it to the cases at that time.
If the average time to death from diagnosis is two weeks then the comparison is 642 cases at that time versus 65 new deaths – about 10% mortality rate. If it is a week then the mortality rate is about 1%, which is not realistic.
The spreadsheet is interesting as looking at it from the bottom up shows cases tripled every three days, then increased less than double every three days. Anyone familiar with the story of the chessboard starting with one grain of rice and doubling at every square will realise this is not a good sign.
A deadly disease like this has only two possible outcomes : recovery or death. Only when one or the other happens can you calculate the mortality rate. It was worrying that the ‘recovered’ figure lagged ‘deaths’. Perhaps more worrying that the ‘recovered’ figure does not seem to be included any more.
VIRUS
I do not see how this disease can be contained. It is almost perfect :
– Infectious before symptoms show
– Some of the infected [and infectious] do not develop the disease
– Easy to transmit
– Estimated that each infected person infects four others – exponential
– Virus may linger in the environmentMy question now is how dangerous this disease is. One article suggested that 80% of the affected just have a mild illness, but 20% have ‘complications’.
The figure which concerns me most is the number of deaths versus number recovered. Deaths outnumber recovered implying a death rate of over 50%! My hope is that the reported cases are just those with complications which reduce the death rate to about 11%.
‘Complications’ seems to mainly affect the elderly, one article suggested the average age of those dying was 75. Not so good for a few presidential candidates [or me!].
I am not too concerned about the figures being under-reported as it does not change reality. Also you do not want to panic the population into ‘fleeing’.
There is a horrible fascination with reading about this slow-motion disaster. It will change the world.
If Bernie Sanders is cheated again he could teach the DNC a lesson by standing as an independent!
It could split the Democrat vote giving Trump an easy victory.
Or he could actually win!
WEAPONISED VIRUS
The fish market does seem to be the source. If it has been weaponised then it would be a deliberate release. How many countries have biowarfare labs specialising in weaponising diseases who may feel ill will towards China?
It would explain the problem with the bat soup theory as viruses die at 65C so should not survive.
The Senator should realise that having a lab in the area does not mean it is the source : there were US Biowarfare labs in all the countries where ebola appeared and by his logic they must have been responsible!
Prince Andrew is the ONLY famous person associated with Epstein.
He is FOREIGN so he can be pursued at will.
Ignore any elephants in the room, especially the one with a Bill Clinton T-shirt. That is not the elephant you are looking for!
CLIMATE CHANGE
In the atmosphere only about 1 in 2,500 molecules is CO2.
To raise the temperature above background by one degree these CO2 molecules must raise the temperature of the other 2500 molecules by one degree. This means each CO2 molecule must ‘trap’ heat equivalent to raising its’ temperature to 2,500C!
Can it be incremental? No, as soon as the Sun stops shining CO2 will become the same temperature as surrounding molecules.
Can the atmosphere store heat overnight? No. Consider the Sahara desert where temperatures fall by 30 to 40 degrees overnight, down to freezing point. This is how good the atmosphere is at storing heat! The desert is important as it minimises the influence of water vapour, which has a massive effect on climate and temperature.
I have no idea how CO2 is supposed to affect climate. I think it supposed to be heat [see above].
As climate scientists have pointed out : there is no climate ‘crisis’. Bad weather is happening roughly at the same rate as before, usually with worse examples in the past. What has changed is that there are more people and properties in harms way. For example, California fires were many times worse in the 1930s.
However the MSM concentrates on the climate activists.
I feel some sympathy for Thunberg who has been brainwashed since she was a kid into believing everything that the climate activists say. It has been likened to a religious cult where all prophecies are believed instantly and without question [In fact questioning is heresy and calls for the most extreme punishment possible!]
It doesn’t matter if the prophecies do not come true as new prophecies will be made. When the Earth does not heat up by 2 degrees by 2030, or 1 million species do not go extinct, new prophecies will be in place for the faithful.
I do not know how people like Thunberg will feel when they realise climate activists have always been wrong and she has a huge bill to pay for ‘fighting’ climate change.
Soleimani
Trump acted on information from US Security Services. Pro-Democrat anti-Trump organisations!
I can’t help feeling it was a trap.
One way to lose the election is to start a war and this was a good way to do it.
HAS TRUMP THROWN THE ELECTION AWAY?
Trump was in a great position. The Democrats were self-destructing, none of their candidates are very appealing, polls suggested he would beat any of them.
Now this.
It seems to be splitting on party lines, with the Democrats against and the Republicans for. Iran is almost forced to react, with unknown consequences. If it escalates it will become a major influence on the election, to the detriment of Trump.
I can not believe that Trump ordered such a stupid mindless irresponsible action!
During his election campaign Trump promised to spend a trillion dollars to fix America’s crumbling infrastructure. A recent article suggested it would take at least 3 trillion dollars to fix America’s infrastructure. Any move to repair America seems to be strongly resisted.
The fall of the Soviet Union is often put down to excessive military spending which drained the economy.
Is the US on the brink of following this route?
COP25
Will it save the world? No. They are Don Quixotes fighting imaginary monsters.
However we may be faced with a serious REAL climate disaster.
The Sun has been very quiet this year in terms of sunspots, which usually leads to bad winters. There is already ample evidence that this winter will be a bad one.
However there is a credible prediction that this lack of solar activity will last for over 100 years. The last time this happened is referred to as ‘the little ice age’! It is based on the idea that the four electrical fields in the Sun are out of phase.
One of the major impacts of this will be on food, with poor summers and frozen ground over winter. The main areas affected will be northern Europe and northern America.
If it comes true then in a way everybody wins: it will bring about global cooling and reduce the global population!
HONG KONG DEMOCRACY BILL
There are dozens of examples of how the US destroyed democracy in various countries, and they are perfectly happy to work with countries which do not have democracy.
I can think of no example of the US genuinely helping to create a democracy anywhere.
There is a strong argument to say democracy in the US is effectively non-existent!
BREXIT INFLUENCE
The biggest influence on BREXIT was the murder of the very popular MP, Jo Cox. At the time of her death the polls showed the leave vote at 57% and rising, and was it expected to be well over 60%.
Her death probably lost at least 10% of the leave vote. The psychology is simple : by voting AGAINST her viewpoint you are voting FOR her murderer.
Worryingly there are other examples of very popular campaigners being murdered during European referendums, with similar effects on the vote.
ARCTIC BLAST
For those following true climate science this is not much of a surprise. The Sun has been very quiet in the past year which usually leads to colder weather.
The concern is that the Sun may be entering an extended quiet period which would lead to global cooling and a series of bad winters and poor summers. There is a high expectation that this will last for some years.
The worst case scenario is that we are entering a new Maunder minimum [little ice age]. This caused famine across the globe. With today’s global population it could cause an extreme disaster. Another Maunder minimum is thought to be a distinct possibility.
The future could be quite bleak.
HONG KONG
Not quite sure what the protestors hope to achieve. Democracy was not part of the British rule and will not be part of the Chinese rule. China will not give Hong Kong independence. After more than 150 years of interference from European countries this is the last vestige.
I assume the expectation of those orchestrating these protests is that China will be forced to interfere, and I am sure governments already have a list of punitive measures should it do so.
I feel it is to China’s advantage to do nothing. By crippling the economy of Hong Kong the protestors may make Hong Kong a worse place to live than China, so when the colony is absorbed into China it will be a step up and not a step down.
TRANS
I am finding this whole area increasingly disturbing.
The LGBT community is a minority. Within that transvestites are a minority. Within that transgender is a minority. The only estimate I have seen for transgender is 0.02% of the population. So 99.98% of the population is not but are being asked/forced to make sacrifices to accommodate this minority.
Being transgender involves genital mutilation and drugs for life. It is not trivial.
It seems the idea of having a ‘trans’ kid is becoming trendy, but kids are pliable or willing to please so they may be persuaded to go along without really knowing what the implications are. The law should be protecting these kids but instead seems to be paving the way.
Transgender males are making a mockery of female sport – they are still genetically male with male advantages and set records no female could ever beat.
Then there are the perverts. Males who identify as female so they can use female toilets, be put in female prisons [even though they still have a penis], and so on.
While not often mentioned it seems that one in three transgenders regret the change. In the future there could be many more people whose lives are harmed by being mistakenly persuaded to make the change.
IMF
I read an article in the Economist many years ago. It talked about a 4 billion dollar loan to Brazil, I think in the ’80s when it was a lot of money.
The article suggested that within 6 months 90% of the loan was in Swiss bank accounts. Of course when it came to repayment the whole of Brazil was on the hook.
It does not seem unusual for the IMF to give loans to crooks knowing they will steal it!!
It seems reasonable for the debtor country to point this out and suggest they recover the money from the crooks and that the country is not liable. The Ukraine comes to mind.
It could perhaps teach the IMF to loan to people they can actually trust!
AMAZON RAIN FOREST
How does this affect the monetisation of the Amazon?
Many years ago trees were monetised. I read about a Northern Ireland firm who paid an Amazonian tribe a small amount each year which gave them the right to sell a couple of hundred million pounds worth of carbon credits.
Just one of the many, many ways that firms make profits from the global warming/climate change ‘catastrophe’ which in no way helps anything.
Perhaps some of the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on ‘fighting’ climate change should have been spent on buying the Amazon rain forest.
Why should Brazilian farmers forego the increase in jobs and food production for no benefit while foreign firms make billions?
ECONOMICS AI
I would be fascinated if an AI was created dedicated to economics!
So much economics seems simply made up or is self-fulfilling.
Recently one fund manager said his investing could not be based on what is rational but to anticipate the irrational investing of others.
In, for example, gold, it is not unusual for the price to be manipulated below the 200DMA at which point the chartists will take over as this is a sell signal.
It would be interesting to see if an AI could find anything real in economics, or to embrace the irrational in investment strategy, or become the first insane AI!?
BREXIT Ad Nauseum
The vote authorising BREXIT was taken years ago. After that point it was just between the leader of the UK and the EU. Parliamentary approval is not required, but would be nice to have.
It is my understanding that Boris can simply sign the deal and it will be legally binding.
The default is still ‘no deal’ on the 31st.
US : HEALTH & SOCIALISM
It can be sometimes quite amusing reading articles written by Americans on ‘socialism’. You can almost feel their blood vessels bursting as they write!
What they ignore is that the miiltary is a socialist organisation – it is paid for by the people for the defence of the people [in theory]
In addition the CIA, NSA, FBI, etc are products of Socialism – paid for by the people for the security of the people [in theory]
Similarly the police force is socialist – paid for by the people for the safety of the people [in theory]
[It would be interesting to privatise the military – make it a charity whose budget is totally dependent on voluntary contributions from US citizens!]
There are some things which are of national importance, for example basic education, which should be freely available to all.
Finally health. The US system of healthcare is indefensible! At twice the cost in terms of GDP than other developed countries it is not even inclusive. The random bills are a key cause of bankruptcy, even when the patient has insurance. Drugs in the US can be ten times what they cost in Canada!
As the baby boomers move to retirement it will be critical that the diminishing population of working age be fit enough to work. I would suggest that locking up a couple of million people of working age in prison will also become a threat to the US economy!
It should be possible for the US to improve health provision while halving the costs for the country.
I favour an NHS style system as found in the UK and [I believe] Canada.
