Today’s heroes
Everybody’s saying it, but I’ll add my voice.
These are some of the heroes of this coronavirus crisis (not meant to be a complete list): doctors, nurses, EMTs, grocery store workers, truckers, delivery people, mail carriers. And although we might not agree with everything every one of them says: the task force and Trump, answering questions and informing the public day after day after day, not to mention working behind the scenes for countless exhausting and stressful hours.
Also we have various companies doing their bit to take up the slack to manufacture things like ventilators, or to make certain drugs.
I have an intense hope that one of the lessons we learn from this is to never, never ever, rely on another country to be the near-sole supplier of one of our basic needs such as medicine or medical equipment. That this was ever allowed to happen regarding China is an abomination – all the more upsetting because very few of us even knew that it was happening at the time.
We have a lot of American Heroes stepping up, risking their own health to keep things going and protecting us as best they can.
The democrat politicians are sadly not among them.
Remember in November!
I have an intense hope that one of the lessons we learn from this is to never, never ever, rely on another country to be the near-sole supplier of one of our basic needs such as medicine or medical equipment. That this was ever allowed to happen regarding China is an abomination
It did not happen.
Art Deco:
Near-sole does not mean “sole.” China makes a lot of our drugs and particularly the main ingredients for drugs that are manufactured in other places. I’ve read a lot on the subject and the figures given vary, but generally the agreement is that it’s a lot.
It’s not every drug, either. This isn’t meant to be an in-depth treatment of the subject, but for some important parts of our drug supply China is indeed the near-sole supplier.
I’ve also read your previous comments on the subject.
Here are some figures that are based on discussions that occurred before the current coronavirus crisis:
There are only four countries the US can rely on all the time.
The Framers thought about that stuff: a similar (or the same) principle can be found in US Constitution, Article I. Sec. 8, clause 17 (in part): “To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of Government of the United States […]” . . . the notion being, **you residents of the Capitol district will not be permitted to hold the Nation’s government hostage to your peculiar dispositions or mobs, ever.**
Which principle, though remaining in some sense at hand in black and white type, has nevertheless been gradually eroded and forgotten amongst the people at large.
Statehood for DC! Well, eh, no, how about?
Sure, the stinking Congress doesn’t want the trouble of keeping up with local regulation and lawmaking — a native laziness and learned ineptitude having grown amongst them — but damned if they mightn’t need it one day and rue the moment they let it slip.
Here is the root issue: we have a ‘leadership’ class (both public and private sector) that is largely amoral and worries nearly exclusively about their own self-interest.
What is best for the U.S. and its people (not to mention their own customers) rarely factors into their thinking.
I’m absolutely appalled that Boeing is getting a bailout, after squandering $42 billion on stock buybacks the past five years, without draconian terms. Same is true of the airlines. The politicians, with very few exceptions, are more of the same. Many of them don’t even believe in liberty and free enterprise.
I don’t know how to fix this: they are a product of a highly defective educational system that is within an amoral society.
How to fix this is beyond my pay grade.
Art Deco should know better.
The near sole source situation also involves manufacture of printed circuit boards (PCBs) when cost is the deciding factor. Prototyping or items for sensitive use products (national defense or intellectual property concerns) may justify paying higher costs for non-CCP PCBs. No I don’t have statistics to cite. But as I recall an issue regarding manufacture of ventilators was the availability of PCBs (made in CCP) used to control the mechanical parts of the units.
A) “…one of the lessons we learn…never, never ever, rely on another country to be the near-sole supplier…”
100% agree.
B) “These are some of the heroes of this coronavirus crisis…”
100% agree with the sentiment, intention to praise them.
Just wish we would stop using “Hero” to describe most people that we wish to praise for their actions or service.
Do I think they are Winners or Champions or Guardians or Role Models? Yes, I do. And I don’t understand why that recognition is no longer sufficient.
I’ll add that my desire is prompted by the wish that those who have truly done something heroic, receive the recognition that they deserve.
OK, enough of this – and keep up the good work Neo.
The Levinson family has learned that Robert Levinson has deceased while in Iranian captivity. RIP, Mr. Levinson, and condolences to his family and friends.
The right way to think about this is to ask what if we went to war with China, what would we need? Aluminum, steel, semiconductors,…
The truly precious commodity is the human skills that create the ability to produce these commodities. Someone has to know how to make the steel and build an efficient plant to do it. You don’t simply order a book from Amazon that tells you how to do it. Once you’ve lost those people you’re well and truly screwed.
I blame the economists who claimed the real wealth was in the service economy and the actual production of goods was secondary and could be outsourced.
The new world order elitists are the problem. Everyday people are busy with making rent/mortgage payments, taking care of their children, and all that comes with that 24/7/365. They idly pay lazy attention to the msm ‘news’, drink a beer, eat dinner, watch TV, go to bed, and get up make coffee and do it all over again. They are LIVs.
I don’t blame them for their lack of attention and their laziness. I just wish they would not vote.
Why do you spend any mind share on “Art Deco” (ah such a self-consciously clever little pseud)?. His real essence is somewhere beneath “putz.”
Paul in Boston:
But to the best of my understanding these things weren’t outsourced because of what economists said. They were outsourced because they were cheaper to make in other countries.
They were outsourced because they were cheaper to make in other countries.
Some of the pharmaceutical producers were the victims of Chinese cartels that sold under cost until American rivals were driven out of business. I am convinced that significant bribery was involved with US politicians.
Neo, I’m not sure of cause and effect here, but the economists justified the move, a whole lot of Johnathon Grubers who thought that a spread sheet is an adequate model of the world.
Andrew Carnegie once said, take away my factories and I’ll have it all back in five years. Take away my people and I’ll have nothing. I wonder how many of those people have been lost to us in the thirty years this has been going on, all those people who know how to make and build things?
Art Deco’s “It did not happen” is the foulest comment ever posted on Neo’s site.
The man (if a man) is either drunk or is a fool, perhaps both. It is hard to accept that he posted such a snarky, ill-considered denial of reality, but he did.
Paul in Boston:
It’s been going on longer than 30 years, driven in large part by the “globalists”, the so-called free traders who, in the federal government bought into the totally stupid notion that more and more prosperous Chinese will demand freedoms and succeed.
I saw the textile mills in NC close in the 1970s (every town had one!), and then the entire US furniture manufacturing industry, based in High Point NC. Who can apply veneers today? Only foreigners.
Moral of story is Never Get Into Bed With Your Enemy.
The Wuhan virus may thus actually be a blessing, removing the scales from our eyes that we may see, repent, and never again do deals with a tyrannical, committed enemy, especially one seeking permanent global domination.
We are a long way from coming back. A Dem victory in Nov. will kill the USA….forever.
See The Atlantic, “Normalizing Trade Relations with China was a Mistake” 2018
Actually gives Trump some credit for trying to correct the imbalance created when aligned economic nationalists, anti communists and human rights advocates lost the political argument to cynical multinationals and those who dreamed that trade makes people nice and democratic. Now the Chinese are so invested/insinuated into our commodity supply chain and our public universities, that the bureaucrat class has come to identify as strongly with their fellow mandarins as their fellow citizens. Or at least to see their primary interests as coinciding.
The left, feminists (who are socialist communists in the coin of kolontai their hero), the anarchists and all that…
believe
in communism we trust
their ideal would never let them down
and the way things really were are just exagerated stories, like baba yaga
Cicero. The Dirty Jobs guy, Mike Rowe makes the same point. There are almost no master machinists left in the US, they’re all in China.
President Trump had dealing with China as one of his top priorities. He is very well educated about China (had read key books like “Mao, The Unknown Story” already in 2011). He has worked to get manufacturing back to the U.S. from China using tarriffs and other tools. Bringing back manufacturing of pharmaceuticals will happen. But it will also require making in the U.S. basic chemicals needed to make drugs that are now made largely in China.
Art Deco demonstrates one of the true revelations of modern existence. It used to be thought that the source of a lot of human conflict and difficulty was a lack of information. Yet today we have access to more information than any human beings who have ever lived and instead of conforming out beliefs to that information, the vast majority of us simply seek out the data that conforms to our beliefs.
Mike
“Here is the root issue: we have a ‘leadership’ class (both public and private sector) that is largely amoral and worries nearly exclusively about their own self-interest.
What is best for the U.S. and its people (not to mention their own customers) rarely factors into their thinking.”
Agreed. To offer an objective and clinical example, one need look no further than the Affordable Care Act.
Somewhere, I saw a rough drawing of how to make a ventilator using a Ford F-150 blower with other parts. Those engineering types are some of the heroes,
What I don’t like to see are the Cuomos of the world demanding something NOW. Those guys want the President to ORDER companies to make some widget like NOW.
So, the President could order a company to make a widget, but that company still has to figure out how to make it, get the supplies, retool their factory, train their employees and so on. That does not happen in a blink of an eye – the finished product can not be ordered day one and delivered the same day.
On another note – I am a quilter. A call has gone out to quilters to make masks to cover the N95 masks to be able to extend the life of the mask. And having a fun fabric cover makes it more fun for the nurse and the patient. So I decided that I would help. My doctor sent an email out about a local effort.
It is a mask, but there are a lot of options coming up such as a mask with ties or elastic loops, A simple mask for lay persons or more complex to cover a N95 mask or a mask that has an extra layer to insert the N95 mask for ease & protection. Do I have all the materials, and then where to send it? It is a simple fabric mask, not a multipart piece of machinery.
Some hospitals have already posted that they have enough, but are still accepting them to give to other places. So, as I wait for a delivery of elastic, I am researching patterns options. Some postings online assume making one mask at a time Nope, I like mass production in cutting and piecing and sewing.
My plan is to send packs to family, friends with medical issues, neighbors, my doctor who can give to her patients, my mail carriers, the local cops, and so on. So, the most fragile of my community will get an extra surprise.
So, there are things we can do as a community to help others in the community. I’ll make masks to spread around my community. I’ll also order meals from my local restaurants ot support them, but it is worth it. Go for it!
Liz: “So, there are things we can do as a community to help others in the community.”
That’s the spirit. It’s what we did during WWII. Everybody did their little (or sometimes quite big) part. It all adds up to make us all more resilient and improves morale. We can do this and come out the other side stronger.
Paul In Boston: “I blame the economists who claimed the real wealth was in the service economy and the actual production of goods was secondary and could be outsourced.”
I do too. Real wealth has always come from mines, forests, fields, oil/gas wells, manufacturing plants, and construction. Service industries exist to make the distribution of the wealth thus produced easier and more available. Without the basic industries there is no wealth to distribute. Mike Rowe understands this better than anybody. The Ivy League economists………not so much.
“I have an intense hope that one of the lessons we learn from this is to never, never ever, rely on another country to be the near-sole supplier of one of our basic needs such as medicine or medical equipment.” – Neo
“I have an intense hope that one of the lessons we learn from this is to never, never ever, rely on partisan politicians to be the near-sole decision-makers of one of our basic needs such as medicine or medical equipment.” –
amended in light of the recent exposures of the past exploits of Governor “we don’t need no steenkin’ ventilators” Cuomo and President “who needs strategic medical supply reserves?” Obama.
Adding another layer of bureaucracy is anathema to me, but maybe the CDC could be tasked with doing an annual inventory / audit of state and federal supply inventories and goosing the President and Congress — and publishing a mandated report — when they fall below certain levels or are not replenished.
Most of the problem is that people just don’t know what their leaders (and I use that term loosely) are trading away when they decide to spend the taxpayers’ money of boondoggles instead of necessities.
New Orleans and levy maintenance come to mind.
Service does not add economic value in the way that manufacturing does. If I cut your hair and you cut mine, money changes hands but there is no added value. The USA is right now a 77.5%GDP service economy!
If, however, I mine iron ore, you turn it into steel, and someone else makes steel girders from that steel, each step endures costs and adds value. Thus a ton of steel girders costs way, way more than a ton of pure iron.
That, incidentally, is the basis for Europe’s VAT, the Value Added Tax; production from raw material to finished product is taxed every step of the way, on incremental values added. A bite here, another bite there, and Lo! the total VAT to the consumer is 20% or more. Punitive, much worse, obviously, than our state and local sales taxes.
J.J., Cicero,
I heard a long time ago that ‘All wealth comes out of the ground’.
Tru dat.
Urban planning I, there are basic and non-basic businesses. If your business makes something that replaces an import to your community, or gets money from someone outside your community, these are basic businesses.
In Vegas, money from visitors to the community flows into the community thru the gambling dens. So service industries can be basic, think tax havens where money goes to hide. The guy in his mom’s basement creating an app that generates income is basic, if people outside his community pay money for it. Then when he comes outside to pay his dealer for a joint, that is non-basic business.
The reason for the wealth of the San Francisco is that value has been created. Facebook, Alphabet, Apple create value, mostly from non-physical things. How much is information worth?
Whoever created Zoom, has permitted people to participate in virtual church this weekend. Insert app, watch, don’t have a computer, dial in on your phone. Welcome. Be spiritually fed. Another non-physical thing. Value.
So basic and non basic industries are an important concept to understand. It isn’t just service and non service industries. Rather, it is: who pays, who gets paid?
Rebuilding the electronics industry will be easy compared to basic manufacturing. Local governments won’t license plants that make dirt and pollution. The U.S. has lost all of its smelteries, foundries, blast furnaces, extrusion plants and chemical plants of all sorts. As long as we’re unwilling to have dirt here we can’t make parts.
President Trump has said that, although he activated the Defense Production Act, he hasn’t had to use it yet. So far, every manufacturer he has asked anything of has said “yes.” Many don’t wait to be asked. The President’s most useful role has been to eliminate bureaucratic obstacles stopping people who were already more than willing to help.
Presbypoet,
I agree Zoom has proven to be very, very useful at this time.
Zoom was created and is maintained by Chinese programmers, even though it is an American company. All Zoom sessions pass through Zoom’s servers. What are the odds that these programmers inserted obscure code that allows some Chinese entity to monitor keywords? And once detected, that session quietly copies itself and rides the rails back to China.
I would think the odds are 99 percent to one percent.
We are outsourcing vast amounts of programming to China and India. Gosh, what could happen?
@ Gordon Scott,
Yes,”Learn to code, train for a career in IT, and your future is assured”, was the mantra just a couple handfuls of years ago, as the knowing knowers confidently advised the aspiring and anxious.
A half generation later it is now: “Oh gee, you mean that programming can be exported just as easily as rotary die cutting; and that we are expected to train our foreign replacements?”
One of the most satisfying insults I’ve seen directed at the formerly smug practitioners of ” journalism” who are now facing dispossession and economic irrelevance, is the response, “Learn to code!”. Satisfying both in its justly redounding irony, as well as in its ultimate futility as reliable advice in the face of social and financial cultures almost dedicated to off shore sourcing as an expression of cosmopolitan virtue.
Tax incentives to build/rebuild/refit existing factories, appreciation of tradesmen, craftsmen, and artisans in this country, returning classes in trades to public schools, and convincing selfish Americans that paying a few more $ for American made products all could help bring production back to the US. Getting cooperation from the greenies would be the sticking point. Modern technologies can make those belching smokestacks cleaner, but there will be dirt. Expect cries of racism, elitism from the NIMBYs. It must be done if we want to save our country.
Gotta put on my home-made double cloth mask, hand-sewn by a doctor, in a lovely bright blue, and go for a walk!
The future is probabilistic! What are the probable deaths in the world, in the US, by 2021, end of March? Who knows? None know the answer, but those who have been most correct in most questions have their own estimates.
https://goodjudgment.io/covid/dashboard/?fbclid=IwAR2myeqCn_g6Y0H3eJBLUXldvG4dXz0MLHibX3uihrbinN_kGGN24FFK3gk
Between 35k – 350,000 US deaths by March 31, 2021 (next year).
More mask wearing, sooner, will reduce it.
Pelosi is on the TV telling how she and the others put families and such first, about testing and that… but not a freaking mention of quotas, pork, etc… she is sounding like she is having such a hard time making the world better and that its really harder every day for her to succeed… but now she has strong bi-partisan vote…
cant wait to see it go to 5 trillion in the house..
thats if i live that long…
Presbypoet at 2:11 am. Well said.
Some doofus “expert” from Biden’s campaign is saying “If you aren’t doing your job now, it’s because Donald Trump wasn’t doing his job in January and February” fighting coronavirus. I think that attack is an interesting test of the mendacity of the press and the stupidity of the public.
Is Donald Trump also the President of China? Italy? Spain? Germany? Iran? France? Canada? Britain? And is the suggestion that he should have locked down the country in January and February…WHILE THE DEMOCRATS WERE TRYING TO IMPEACH HIM?
Mike
The ‘service economy’ is a very broad thing. I’d argue that a railroad moving raw materials to a factory (and transportation is categorized as a service), or moving semifinished products from one factory to another, is just as much a part of the productive economy as a conveyor belt moving things from one part of a factory to another part of the same factory.
“Somewhere, I saw a rough drawing of how to make a ventilator using a Ford F-150 blower with other parts. Those engineering types are some of the heroes”
MacGuyver lives!
https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a31917145/ford-respirators-coronavirus-covid-19/
If I was a marketing guy at DeWalt/Ryobi/Black&Decker, I’d be begging for the opportunity to supply batteries and sockets for this.
@ MBunge: Times like these will show the true agenda of those who do not like Trump. They cannot control the symptoms of TDS. Oh bless them.
David Foster: “I’d argue that a railroad moving raw materials to a factory (and transportation is categorized as a service), or moving semifinished products from one factory to another, is just as much a part of the productive economy as a conveyor belt moving things from one part of a factory to another part of the same factory.”
In the old days (before the industrial. revolution), all production took place pretty much “in situ.” Products were moved to the end users by human or animal power. If there were no products produced, the transportation would not have occurred. Thus, the production begot the transportation, thereby making the finished products more available and creating wider distribution.
In modern times transportation has become involved in moving not only products around to where they are needed, but also a mover of humans traveling on business and pleasure. Consider the present situation in which the cruise lines (transporters of pleasure seeking customers) are seeing that the demand for their services has collapsed. Pleasure travel is not essential to an economy. Although the airlines transport business people, mail and some cargo, a large part of their business is made up of pleasure seeking flyers. Again, the demand has collapsed. It’s non-essential.
In summary, while transportation is enmeshed with production, without the production there would be no demand for the service .
An austrialian hero
Mehreen Faruqi, Australian politician, Greens Senator for New South Wales, and identity politician stood up before that nation’s legislative body and asked her colleagues to consider the impact that coronavirus is having on women specifically, and that resources be dedicated to that cause.
=========================================
they are equal, but everythin is worse for them… literally everything..
they live longer, but that is worse too…
they suck this stuff up, its their only identity… without this what would they be?
not only that, but they are where they want to be, now its a big problem
most unhappy people that ever existed i guess…
is this a double hero?
Epidemiologist Behind Highly-Cited Coronavirus Model Admits He Was Wrong, Drastically Revises Model
https://www.dailywire.com/news/epidemiologist-behind-highly-cited-coronavirus-model-admits-he-was-wrong-drastically-revises-model?utm_source=63red.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=63red
he first said millions and millions…
now:
Now, the epidemiologist predicts, hospitals will be just fine taking on COVID-19 patients and estimates 20,000 or far fewer people will die from the virus itself or from its agitation of other ailments, as reported by New Scientist Wednesday.
oops… his bad.. good thing he is an expert that costed the US 1 trillion
UK has enough intensive care units for coronavirus, expert predicts
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2238578-uk-has-enough-intensive-care-units-for-coronavirus-expert-predicts/
Gee, maybe overturning your entire society based on computer models isn’t such a great idea.
Applicability of this lesson to climate “science” will be left as an exercise for the reader.
Meemsie:
I think all of us agree with you, except the doofus Art Deco, who I hope has gone to ground.
Wendy K Laubach on March 26, 2020 at 6:45 am said:
…The President’s most useful role has been to eliminate bureaucratic obstacles stopping people who were already more than willing to help.
* * *
MBunge on March 26, 2020 at 11:20 am said:
Some doofus “expert” from Biden’s campaign is saying “If you aren’t doing your job now, it’s because Donald Trump wasn’t doing his job in January and February” fighting coronavirus. I think that attack is an interesting test of the mendacity of the press and the stupidity of the public.
Is Donald Trump also the President of China? Italy? Spain? Germany? Iran? France? Canada? Britain? And is the suggestion that he should have locked down the country in January and February…WHILE THE DEMOCRATS WERE TRYING TO IMPEACH HIM?
Mike
* * *
Well, Wendy, the reason Mike’s comment applies to yours, is that getting bureaucrats and their obstacles out of the way is exactly what the Democrats (and some Republicans, sadly) don’t want to have done.
Gordon Scott on March 26, 2020 at 7:28 am said:
…
Zoom was created and is maintained by Chinese programmers, even though it is an American company. All Zoom sessions pass through Zoom’s servers.
* * *
Given the role of China in the Chinese virus debacle, you raise a serious concern. I have some friends who want to do a music jam over Zoom, so not too worried about the national security ramifications of that, but I do have to give them an email address and possibly other ID.
What is your source for the claims?
Wikipedia (of course) doesn’t cover that aspect of the company.
AesopFan, I heard it from Scott Adams on his podcast. He has brought it up more than once. He is usually very well informed. As he has been in the tech world for decades, and maintains his ties, I am willing to accept his word on this. His podcast audience, which skews tech heavy, would raise hell if he were mistaken.
That said, I would not worry about your music project. You can uninstall it when you’re done.
Thanks Gordon.
Wiki says they had some problems with that uninstall in the past; hopefully there are some independents, like Scott’s audience, who can verify that.
China’s welcome to listen to my ukulele, but I don’t want an open back-door into my computer.
“Why do you spend any mind share on “Art Deco” (ah such a self-consciously clever little pseud)?. His real essence is somewhere beneath “putz.””
Sage advice.
Geez, AesopFan, that’s pretty ominous. “Ah, you want uninstall? Pardon while I reinstall in the background, so your boss can see that you’re not wearing pants.”
i’m glad I have an Android phone. I only have to worry about Chinese spyware, not hardware in the phone itself. Oh, in addition to the Facebook spyware, the Instagram spyware, etc. “Yeah, you know, when we said we weren’t tracking you and selling the information, we were. Oopsie!”
I’m reminded of the character played by Harrison Ford in the movie “The Mosquito Coast.” Early on he grouches at the hardware store when the only weatherstripping foam he can find is Chinese. Ford’s character was considered a crank, because it was 1986! Walmart still had signs up in stores bragging about how many jobs they created in the US.
It’s still Red vs Blue. Even now? Come on, what is it gonna take, Skynet?
It also doesn’t matter from China or another country America sources the formaldehyde used in vaccines. It’s still formaldehyde which can cause acidosis and other problems, which are not good to have while a pandemic is roaming around either.
Gordon – hah – nice movie reference.
I’ll add this WalMart meme from a CTH commenter today, at the supply chain post.
https://i.postimg.cc/50pSzFsd/9-C6-DFE4-C-26-A9-47-D9-9158-3-D7-DEAC72642.jpg
I have been following the supply chain updates, they are very informative and useful.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/03/26/phase-four-supply-chain-prioritizes-proteins-return-manufactured-processed-grain-products-still-lag/#comment-7986488
I stumbled across a link to Zoom’s Chinese engineering from last year:
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/26/zoom-key-profit-driver-ahead-of-ipo-engineers-in-china.html