Liberty

https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public/when-and-how-to-use-masks "If you are healthy, you only need to wear a mask if you are taking care of a person with COVID-19. Wear a mask if you are coughing or sneezing." -WHO still has this on their website. Not my opinion to be clear. Yeah, that was a lie (likely with the good intention of stopping a run on scarce PPE in the early days). Now do Trump’s lies instead of cherry picking. He’s in charge in the US, not the WHO. No other competent countries have been stopped by this.. because they’re trying to defeat the virus rather than look for others to blame. Did you forget the Surgeon Generals tweet "Seriously people - STOP BUYING MASKS!'. That is actually surgeon general of USA, not WHO. Even as recent as April 2nd Dr. Fauci was struggling to support using masks. (Dr. Fauci also works for US govt, not WHO) https://www.facebook.com/cnn/videos/213806963020721/ But Japanese, Koreans, Taiwanese...etc started using masks from January. I can understand if many people who were told for several months to not wear a mask and put in lockdown and suddenly told all you had to do is wear a mask might be little bit not convinced. Yeah, you're making my point. The US response has been incompetent, in good part because of the war on experts from the Trump admin and putting cronies in charge based on loyalty rather than competence, and not listening to the competent people or allowing them to run things (Fauci, etc) because the honcho can't share the spotlight or be contradicted or stay focused on anything long enough to understand it and follow through with a plan. And everybody made early mistakes, the point is to correct them fast and copy from those that are doing well and have a plan that makes sense based on the best science and data, to use all tools at your disposal, to communicate clearly to the population with a unified message and not to politicize a health issue, etc. It's worth throwing the kitchen sink at it because the cost of he pandemic is so high that anything that shortens it or reduces intensity pays for itself a million times over, as Taiwan and South Kore and New Zealand and Honk Kong are finding out. The US has been doing the opposite of all this, which is why 4% of world population had 30%+ of deaths and the curve hasn't been crushed, but rather is just slowly melting (and could restart after a few weeks of re-opening).

https://forge.medium.com/prepare-for-the-ultimate-gaslighting-6a8ce3f0a0e0

https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public/when-and-how-to-use-masks "If you are healthy, you only need to wear a mask if you are taking care of a person with COVID-19. Wear a mask if you are coughing or sneezing." -WHO still has this on their website. Not my opinion to be clear. Yeah, that was a lie (likely with the good intention of stopping a run on scarce PPE in the early days). Now do Trump’s lies instead of cherry picking. He’s in charge in the US, not the WHO. No other competent countries have been stopped by this.. because they’re trying to defeat the virus rather than look for others to blame.

Face shields do seem more comfortable... https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2765525

https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/25410/20200421/austria-90-drop-coronavirus-cases-requiring-people-wear-face-masks.htm "Austria Has 90% Drop in Coronavirus Cases After Requiring People to Wear Face Masks" If only the US could do the same rapidly and effectively and masks hadn't been politicized by imbeciles... Sad!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-ramps-up-retaliatory-purge-with-firing-of-state-department-inspector-general/2020/05/16/8f8b55da-979a-11ea-82b4-c8db161ff6e5_story.html

So far the "we just shouldn’t do it” has been resounding success in the markets. ::) Kushner wants to move markets, but he isn’t even at first level thinking yet. He’s at 0.5-level thinking.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-05-15/will-i-get-coronavirus-at-the-grocery-store-unlikely

“Jared [Kushner] had been arguing that testing too many people, or ordering too many ventilators, would spook the markets and so we just shouldn’t do it” ???

You think in slogans. "Liberty would win" is meaningless in the context of a nuclear war. Everybody would lose. Your comparison to Germany and Japan isn't applicable on many dimensions. You're the one who brought up nuclear war (and WWIII!). Who, exactly, would be on China's side? North Korea? Russia? It isn't clear at all that we would have nuclear war. Is it possible? yes. A far more likely outcome (I suspect) would be more like the cold war. I highly doubt China would risk nuclear war just to keep their stranglehold on Taiwan. What do you think the best course of action is? To keep letting them do what they're currently doing? It's not my responsibility to teach you geopolitics. If the topic interests you, go learn about it.

"Neither Fauci or Birx have had interviews in over 11 days. Neither were allowed to speak at press conference- they were told to stand silently behind Trump. Like puppets. Not okay. " https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/16/coronavirus-health-experts-birx-fauci-trump It happens to them all... They think, I have to try to serve my country, I can do more good on the inside than the outside. So they swallow turds for a while, they're told that if they just hang around they'll have some influence, until they have been fully used up by the sociopath, and then they are discarded and blamed. Tillerson, Kelly, Mattis, Cohn... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Trump_administration_dismissals_and_resignations

You think in slogans. "Liberty would win" is meaningless in the context of a nuclear war. Everybody would lose. Your comparison to Germany and Japan isn't applicable on many dimensions.

No, I said you were naive to think that world war three was a good idea. When did I ever say that WWIII would be a good idea? :o Not in those exact words: https://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/general-discussion/war-risk/msg414754/#msg414754

HCC: What a terrible way to run anything, much less a large-scale medical-scientific public-health emergency.

https://www.ft.com/content/97dc7de6-940b-11ea-abcd-371e24b679ed Read whole thing...

No, I said you were naive to think that world war three was a good idea.

It's not an insult, it's just a fact. Very obvious things need extra explanations with you that they don't require with most other people. As for the rest of what you said, now *that* is insulting. I won't take that transparent bait.

This looks pretty bad: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemlee/stanford-coronavirus-neeleman-ioannidis-whistleblower

Oh boy, I sometimes forget how much hand-holding is required to carry you through a full thought. So Germany and Japan came out more democratic because they were fully invaded and their governments were replaced and redesigned from the ground up. That was possible in a pre nuclear war, but China is a large nuclear power, and can't be invaded. When I mentioned war with China, I wasn't thinking about invasion. But you mentioned Germany and Japan becoming more democratic. I don't think China would become more democratic if they were at war with external aggressors. They'd just clamp down on liberties and the import of foreign ideas and influence, as countries do in time of war. They'd become more totalitarian. So there goes your theory.

Seconded! We recently bought a house, and didn't use realtors on both sides, and it was fine, and I'm glad we saved the money. I'd pay a good realtor a flat fee or hourly rate for good advice and help, but I would never pay them a % of the transaction that amounts to tens of thousands of dollars, especially since many/most of them basically just unlock doors and do minimal hand-holding and are incentivized to get you to accept a worse deal than you might have gotten.

Some approvals and such, for such. That's not the same as deserving credit for the deal. Otherwise, everything that requires federal approval in a country is because of the fed? I didn't know you had the federal government in such high regard. TSMC has known for a long time that the world wants to diversify supply chains outside of Asia, and they'd rather still be the beneficiaries of that rather than let Intel or someone else get that market share.

Or, so you are for a boots-on-the-ground invasion of China with a regime change? That'll be easy in a post-nuclear world ::) No, I don't think we should invade anyone. I do think we should have very harsh economic penalties for their lack of compliance. Weren't you talking about Germany and Japan after the war a second ago? You're giving me whiplash.

Magical thinking: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/15/trump-downplays-need-for-coronavirus-vaccine-itll-go-away-at-some-point.html

Or, so you are for a boots-on-the-ground invasion of China with a regime change? That'll be easy in a post-nuclear world ::)

What exactly did Trump's administration do here? The article you posted does not mention anything. Any time now he'll take credit for it.