American economic meltdown the new pandemic 

1. I really don’t see how linking to a new report of A US intelligence report is all you need to prove your case here. This report is more thorough and balanced which is what we need in these matters and is worth reading.

   FAIR: You Don’t Need to Believe China About China’s Coronavirus Success
   “Neither the Chinese government nor US intelligence agencies are particularly trustworthy sources. So if they disagree about whether China’s figures on its Covid-19 outbreak are accurate, as Bloomberg reported, is there any way to tell who’s telling the truth?
   Well, you could look at the report from the World Health Organization (2/28/20), which sent a team of international observers to China from February 16–24 as the outbreak was still ongoing, talking to hundreds of Chinese doctors and other frontline health workers in hospitals, clinics and laboratories. As Dr. Bruce Aylward, the Canadian doctor and former WHO assistant director general who co-led the team, said in a press conference (2/24/20) presenting the team’s findings:
   https://fair.org/home/you-dont-need-to-believe-china-about-chinas-coronavirus-success/

2. Two interesting articles and a short 3 minute video on covid-19 and china
   https://brontecapital.blogspot.com/2020/03/watch-what-chinese-do.html

   https://brontecapital.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-getting-angry.html

   Regarding the usa economics and us ,,,, we have a known domino disaster heading our way ,,,, With the amount of debt defaults coming … all our banks are merrill lynch right now.

   Tourism is dead for a year ,,, international students is also gone ,,,,,, two big money earners and employers in NZ.

   Sitting on our hands is not an option unless watching and having a known disaster ,,, is preferable to intervening.

   I’ve been banging on about how bad tax havens are ,,, because of what they cost us all.

   But war is another mad mans expense the world needs to be rid off ,,,

   We need to postpone some of the $20 Billion we are spending on war toys ,,, and divert it to health.

   The mix is all wrong in our mixed economy ……

   • Here’s a long but interesting read on covid-19 options and economics ,,,lots of graphs and stuff showing numbers and projections.
     https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-the-dance-be9337092b56

     “Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance
     What the Next 18 Months Can Look Like, if Leaders Buy Us Time”

     “The lack of measures in the US and UK is in stark contrast, especially in the US. These countries are still not doing what allowed Singapore, South Korea or Taiwan to control the virus, despite their outbreaks growing exponentially. But it’s a matter of time. Either they have a massive epidemic, or they realize late their mistake, and have to overcompensate with a heavier Hammer. There is no escape from this.

     But it’s doable. If an outbreak like South Korea’s can be controlled in weeks and without mandated social distancing, Western countries, which are already applying a heavy Hammer with strict social distancing measures, can definitely control the outbreak within weeks. It’s a matter of discipline, execution, and how much the population abides by the rules.”

3. Flipping a coin over reveals a whole new picture of possibilities. With so many extenuating circumstances, one must first find the truth and follow it forward. Quo Bono usually works well for finding the starting line.. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/55011.htm

4. THE BUSINESS RIGHT vs THE MEDICAL LEFT

   1. The central debate seems to be neoliberal business interests lobbying Govts to keep the economy open and preserve profits at all costs ,(While accepting the loss of live as survival of the fittest) Vs the Medical professionals ,Govt health Officials and more center- left Govts and leaders who want to put peoples lives first , shut the virus down as quickly as possible ,so the economy can recover more quickly .

   2. Those countries with center right Govts and leaders who have listened to industry first and the medics second seemed to have opened pandoras box by leaving action too late .

   I predict the deliberate choice to continue “business as usual ” for as long as possible in Brazil /US/UK/Australia and now Sweden will end the political careers of Trump/Boris/Scomo/ etc because of the gross political mismanagement of this crisis .

   3. Sweden 10m vs NZ 5m will be a good cross-cultural comparison in social health policy when this is all over. At the moment Sweden is continuing to do nothing in terms of lockdown and already has 5000 cases and 239 deaths being a very dangerous experiment and could have half its population infected by the end of April .

   4. Seeing what was happening in Italy and Spain it appears Jaccinda choose to act sooner rather than later and thankfully choose her health experts advice over her business lobbyists and put the people first .We didn’t want to be the next Italy .That took significant courage .

   We may in the future be extremely glad she did act sooner rather than later given the grim crisis modeling if we waited too long .Not only did she have a sense of compassion for the NZ population ,she could also see that a South Pacific Italy in 4 weeks time with a small ICU capacity and a huge body count would not work well at the polls or personally for her future career ….Thank god she acted when she did .

   5. I propose we start a new reality TV show called ” The Carona Games ” -Worlds best Leader 2020 .It will give us real time compulsive TV viewing every night to help get through the lockdown .

   All the worlds leaders have a pandemic arrive on the shores and they have to solve the crisis and minimize the harm to their population to win . Each week the worst performing leader is booted of the show .So far NZ is still in running and we are very very lucky we don’t have a Trump for PM .I can’t see trump staying on the show much longer …..

   Yours , Locked up Lemming .

   • I will simply say this.

     We have had 1 death in NZ linked to Covid-19.

     I personally know of 2 suicides linked to the government actions.

     Just in my experience alone the government’s actions have led to more people dying than the virus.

     Now.. The big questions are how badly off we would be if it was running through the streets, assuming it hasn’t already done so (would be cool if the government would “test test test” like they shout instead of “refuse refuse refuse” like people have actually experienced – especially if we could get the cheap and quick antibody tests that show if someone has already had the virus and is immune from re-infection for a time). Italy’s covid-19 death rate is still below it’s usual death rates for influenza. I haven’t managed to find any numbers on influenza deaths there which is something I would really want to know – it either helps my argument or hurts it, but either way I want to know the truth of the matter. Has covid-19 effectively replaced Influenza over there, or are they still seeing similar numbers of deaths from influenza, or are some of the deaths from one being attributed to the other?

     If Influenza is still hitting as hard as it normally does then the rates of people dying are more than double, and that is what we could well have seen if the government had not acted as they did. But if Covid has effectively replaced Influenza, then our own death rate would’ve been roughly the same as we face each year anyway although there are sometimes influenza vaccines. I have known people who had the vaccine and got a strain that wasn’t covered by the vaccine, or at least that’s what they were told when they got sick days after being given the vaccine.

     With some luck, at least this will have people doing a better job of washing their hands and not coughing on everything in sight. Studies I’ve read elsewhere suggest something like “if 60% of people practised proper hand washing, 90% of outbreaks would be stopped”.

     The toll on our population will be high and there will still be a body count. On one hand, we have those who’d have died from Covid-19 – some of whom will likely die this winter anyway. On the other had, we have the suicides, the heart attacks, the strokes, the people who give up healthy living, the people who cannot afford medication, those who were scheduled to get critical cancer or other scans where they’ve been put off (with cancer, early detection is critical and in some cases even a week can be the difference between surviving for several years at least and being buried in a few months).

     I don’t know if we could ever actually tell, but for now I find it quite conceivable that, in suffering and body-count, the lock-down could prove the bigger killer. Having those who are at higher risk isolate while the rest of us stayed working may’ve been better, maybe not. We may have a better idea come spring time.

     Meanwhile, those moaning about the increase to beneficiaries – just remember that the lockdown means it’ll probably be at least 10% of our workforce and maybe 30% of them – people who would’ve been in work had the government taken a different track (and given the reports that most people don’t get strong symptoms (including Jacinda Adern’s own admission today that Italy probably has many times the infection rate but those people don’t show symptoms, it’s feasible we WOULDN’T have had the high numbers of people off-work as some people imagine). According to a published report from IIRC the Auckland chamber of commerce, 30% of the thousand businesses surveyed in the last few days have said they will close permanently due to the lock down.

     Ms Adern, I hope you were right. I really do. I don’t think the nation would survive much if you were proven wrong. All this pain and suffering you and your cohorts heaped on us, and for what? Be right!

     • Working in mental health, I have seen an explosion of suicides during 9 years of Nationals health and social policy reforms. Suicides I had to personally attend.

       I don’t think “I personally know of 2 suicides linked to the government actions.” helps anyone.

       • Having suffered depression for 6 years triggered by surviving an major heart problem I can say that suicide can rarely be put down to a single cause . There may be a final trigger but it would come after lots of smaller incidents probably going back years so it is very simplistic to say a person died because of a single incident.
         Pointing the finger at how the government has operated does not help as you would probably point the same figure if they had done nothing.

         • Again Trev, I need to respond to outrageous posts with outrageous responses . Now I need my head read in agreeing with you. Suicide as you say is an accumulative of many factors, these could be through trauma of psychosocial or biochemical reasons. As you point out depression can also occur as the result of multiple issues therefore a comment of “I personally know of two suicides linked to the government’s actions” is a finite definition and cannot go unchecked without evidence. As I could argue how many suicides were there as a result of the 9 years National were in power? We are in unprecedented times, using that argument to say the present government is panicking is appalling behavior . Commentators greater than those of us commentating on here from around the world are stating how effective we have been in minimizing the spread and therefore death toll. The benefit is a quicker return to a new normal and the least possible disruption to the economy.

   • we are very very lucky we don’t have a Trump for PM

     He’s right there, ready and waiting, using the pandemic to stake his claim while pitching to the world media. Duterte’s little matey is politicking to the max.

5. The Recession Bread Lines Are Forming in Mar-a-Lago’s Shadow

   Though it’s just a four-minute drive across the lagoon from Mar-a-Lago, President Donald Trump’s private club, and ten minutes from the Palm Beach outposts of Chanel and Louis Vuitton, Howley’s diner has become an emblem of America’s stark new economic reality.

   With more than 10 million people across the nation suddenly unemployed, bread lines are forming in the shadows of privileged enclaves like this one in Florida.

   For the past two weeks, the kitchen staff at Howley’s has been cooking up free meals—the other day it was smoked barbecue chicken with rice and beans, and salad—for thousands of laid off workers from Palm Beach’s shuttered restaurants and resorts. The rows of brown-bag lunches and dinners are an early warning that the country’s income gap is about to be wrenched wider as a result of the Covid-19 crisis, and the deep recession it has brought with it. The Recession Breadlines are Forming – Bloomberg

6. A bit of humour…

   A plane with 5 passengers on board, Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Angela Merkel, Xi Jinping and a 10-year-old schoolboy. The plane is about to crash and there are only 4 parachutes.

   Trump says I need one: “I’m the smartest man in the USA and am needed to make America great again.” Takes one and jumps.

   Johnson says, ‘I’m needed to sort out Britain’. He takes one and jumps.

   Xi Jinping says, ‘I need one, as the world needs Chinese money.’ He takes one and jumps.

   Angela says to the ten year old: “You can have the last parachute. I’ve lived my life, yours is only just starting.”

   The 10-year-old replies: “Don’t worry, there are 2 parachutes left. The smartest man in the USA took my school bag.”’

   • It is an old joke, with many variants, but I think Trump fits this role better than any other I have read about 🙂

     Thanks for posting!

7. So our American “friends” aren’t as “exceptional” as they thought they were .

8. “Capitalism dies.”
   Good.
   Let’s get ready then

9. In a graphic demonstration of soft power, so far China has offered Covid-19-related equipment and medical help to no fewer than 89 nations – and counting.

   That covers Africa (especially South Africa, Namibia and Kenya, with Alibaba in fact announcing it will send help to all African nations); Latin America (Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Peru); the arc from East Asia to Southwest Asia; and Europe.
   Key recipients in Europe include Italy, France, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Serbia and Poland. But Italy, most of all, is a very special case. Most are donations. Some are trade – like millions of masks sold to France (and the US).
   https://asiatimes.com/2020/04/china-rolls-out-the-health-silk-road/

10. China has just supplied New Zealand with the respirators we need. Thank you, China.

    • For free? Because if you pay for something you don’t thank them for it.

    • Are they as good and reliable as those made elsewhere?

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