Coronavirus

[RichardGibbons]

This whole mask thing is being blown out of proportion by the media just because it’s Trump.

If Canada faced the same problem as US and Toronto had 1,000 deaths everyday, we would ban our mask exports too. China also banned exports, they’re exporting now cause they don’t need it anymore.

 

 

Mcliu - what a pleasure it is to have someone with some intellectual honesty here. Much too rare.

 

Wow, I've been reading this site for about two decades, and this is the most ironic post I've ever seen on it!  Good job, cubsfan!

[Guest]

Hey Cubs, I am no particular fan of China. But they did come to Canada's aid when our supposed best friend to the south flatly refused - or did you miss that fact. And unlike some I don't hate every poor person who happens to live in another country.

 

To be fair, it’s not just the US, 68 countries have banned exports of PPE..

https://globalnews.ca/news/6769162/canada-medical-supplies-coronavirus/

 

Germany blocks truck full of protective masks headed for Switzerland

https://www.thelocal.com/20200309/germany-blocks-protective-masks-headed-for-switzerland

 

More important question is not whether US will provide masks but why a so-called advanced nation like Canada cannot even produce enough masks for its own people..

What I was getting at is it's not that Canada can't produce. It's that Canada doesn't produce. It mostly buys from 3M.

 

An N95 respirator while looking simple is actually a fairly sophisticated product. So it takes time to setup an operation and a supply chain to mass produce them. You can't just flip a switch. But Canada can produce them, and so can Germany, and France, and the UK, and Switzerland, and Austria, and Sweden, and etc. They all have the technology and engineering capacity to do it.

 

So now once the decide to do it local (for a bit more money), cause you've decided to fuck with their supply, do you think that they'll task a foreign controlled company like 3M to do it for them? Or do you think they'll have one of their local companies do it? It'll probably cost a little bit more money since the local companies are not as good at it as 3M is, but now they've already committed to spending more on masks.

 

Expand this thinking to other medical products. A lot of them come from American companies. They're not low margin products either. So lots of shareholder value destroyed there.

 

And the logical next step is for Canada and Europe and Asia to do something about Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook (and every other US company with a monopoly type position in a vertical). If the US can no longer be trusted as a trading partner then it makes sense to me each Country/region needs local champions in all these verticals. Shades of Huawei. Perhaps similar to what China did (restricting these companies so local champions could grow). If the US is going to act like China then other countries had better get at making the transition. And this would be the ideal time to do it (when the economy is already a shit storm). The bottom line is everyone loses. Should be obvious but politics, just like in the 1930’s, will make a terrible situation much worse.

 

I agree. Populism was on the rise before this. I think this will give it a much bigger push. Like, shouldn't we be manufacturing drugs in our country?

[RichardGibbons]

This response to Trump's blocking of medical equipment to other countries is quite good not just because it's true, but also because it seems like a much more productive way to react to the situation than the more natural anger:

 

While it's easy to become very angry about this, let's keep one thing very clearly in mind: however much damage this Republican government does to Canada's response.. the amount of damage they've done to America and Americans is an order of magnitude higher.

 

Remember that the US hasn't even hit the peak yet. Remember that Republican senators were trading stocks on the COVID response before they were alerting the public. Remember that the situation in NY hasn't peaked, and the situation in Florida and the rest of the south hasn't even started. Remember that rural America hasn't even started to feel this yet, and they have far worse health resources than urban America. Remember that the American health care system never needed the capacity to provide health insurance to all of its people - unlike Canada's public system which has been serving all Canadians for a long time. Remember that their states are fighting with each other and with the feds in trying to obtain medical supplies. Remember that their Republican president and media were literally asking them to die so that their economy could be restarted.

 

So as much as we can get angry at the American government, and the Republican government that's running this response.. let's keep in mind that the American people are the first and primary victims of this feckless administration, and they will feel pain far greater than Canadians ever will.

 

Canada will get through this. We'll get through a large part due to the fact that we're working effectively together, and we have a government we can largely trust, both provincially and federally. Let us be thankful for what we have, and get through this.

 

Source

[cubsfan]

 

I agree. Populism was on the rise before this. I think this will give it a much bigger push. Like, shouldn't we be manufacturing drugs in our country?

 

If you value your defense industries - why not drugs, medical equipment and tech. Control our destiny with our allies. Less dependence on China.

[mcliu]

Hey Cubs, I am no particular fan of China. But they did come to Canada's aid when our supposed best friend to the south flatly refused - or did you miss that fact. And unlike some I don't hate every poor person who happens to live in another country.

 

To be fair, it’s not just the US, 68 countries have banned exports of PPE..

https://globalnews.ca/news/6769162/canada-medical-supplies-coronavirus/

 

Germany blocks truck full of protective masks headed for Switzerland

https://www.thelocal.com/20200309/germany-blocks-protective-masks-headed-for-switzerland

 

More important question is not whether US will provide masks but why a so-called advanced nation like Canada cannot even produce enough masks for its own people..

 

It's one thing to ban exports from your country to another, but another to do this:

 

Earlier this week, officials in both Germany and France accused the U.S. of diverting medical supplies meant for their respective countries by outbidding the original buyers.

 

On Friday, officials in Berlin alleged that the U.S. intercepted a shipment of medical equipment in Thailand from American medical supply company 3M and diverted it to the U.S., the German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel reported. Berlin's interior minister called the alleged interception "modern piracy."

 

U.S. gets to reap the benefits of having global corporate powerhouse firms like 3M that have moats and sell all over the world. Actions like this undermine those companies and longstanding relationships with Germany/France (NATO allies which are not valued these days).

 

As was mentioned on here, actions like this should merely encourage Germany and France to cut out 3M in the future and grow their own in house firms.

 

FT:

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/amp.ft.com/content/03e45e35-ab09-4892-899d-a86db08a935c

 

3M disputed the account, saying it has “no record of any order of respirators from China for the Berlin police”. German authorities were not available on Friday evening to explain the discrepancy.

 

Don’t know what is real anymore.  :o

[Guest]

 

I agree. Populism was on the rise before this. I think this will give it a much bigger push. Like, shouldn't we be manufacturing drugs in our country?

 

If you value your defense industries - why not drugs, medical equipment and tech. Control our destiny with our allies. Less dependence on China.

 

I agree. The rich have gotten richer by selling us out to China. The economy is so broken we have to keep interest rates low and run huge deficits or it'll implode. Most people don't have that much money....so of course things aren't going to function normally.

[cubsfan]

 

I agree. Populism was on the rise before this. I think this will give it a much bigger push. Like, shouldn't we be manufacturing drugs in our country?

 

If you value your defense industries - why not drugs, medical equipment and tech. Control our destiny with our allies. Less dependence on China.

 

I agree. The rich have gotten richer by selling us out to China. The economy is so broken we have to keep interest rates low and run huge deficits or it'll implode. Most people don't have that much money....so of course things aren't going to function normally.

 

That's what it looks like to me. We're going to need those good jobs. We are totally self sufficient in energy and food. It was great to break our dependence

on the Middle East Oil.  Dependence on China is next.

 

And like you said - this has always been a Bi-partisan issue - sold as a bill of goods to the American working class. "Don't worry, it will all work out"

When a republican or democrat tells you that - grab your wallet.

[Guest]

 

I agree. Populism was on the rise before this. I think this will give it a much bigger push. Like, shouldn't we be manufacturing drugs in our country?

 

If you value your defense industries - why not drugs, medical equipment and tech. Control our destiny with our allies. Less dependence on China.

 

I agree. The rich have gotten richer by selling us out to China. The economy is so broken we have to keep interest rates low and run huge deficits or it'll implode. Most people don't have that much money....so of course things aren't going to function normally.

 

That's what it looks like to me. We're going to need those good jobs. We are totally self sufficient in energy and food. It was great to break our dependence

on the Middle East Oil.  Dependence on China is next.

 

And like you said - this has always been a Bi-partisan issue - sold as a bill of goods to the American working class. "Don't worry, it will all work out"

When a republican or democrat tells you that - grab your wallet.

 

Yeah, screw Biden. I don't want to vote for Trump but the Democrats are taking out Bernie so they don't leave me with much choice.

 

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/03/joe-biden-is-chinas-choice-for-president/

 

 

This is a right wing site so take that for what it's worth.

[RichardGibbons]

I thought last Presidential election had two awful choices, but this one's far worse. Biden's dementia makes him a terrible choice to lead a country.

[cwericb]

Cubs, Lets set the record straight.

 

First: you are the only one who used the word “liar”.

 

Second: I have never professed to be an expert on Cuba as you keep saying. However, having been there well over a dozen times in the past 20 years I probably know more about the country than you who has never been there.

 

Third: Your words... “I've said the Communist government of Cuba has failed their people for 60 years and the welfare of the people is the responsibility of the Cuban government.”

 

What you conveniently ignore is the fact that the US is intentionally using the embargo to strangle the government AND THERBY the PEOPLE of Cuba.

 

And by the way, the Cuban people are not particularly poor. But it doesn’t matter how much money you have if there is no food on the shelves because the local bully does everything it can to starve the country.

 

You also stated: “Cwericb - read it and weep.  68 countries have banned exports of PPE.”

But one of them was not Canada. Ironic that Canada supplies the the materials to make the masks and then your country hijacks them. Judge yourself accordingly sir.

[randomep]

 

Pretty much--All except Italy continue to look exponential to me on mortality, but what do I know? Been posting "useless" exponential graphs since February. Turns out they were not that useless...

 

Sir my graph IS the mortality rate, on log-graph, it clearly shows a decreasing slope therefore no longer exponential.

 

[Dalal.Holdings]

 

Pretty much--All except Italy continue to look exponential to me on mortality, but what do I know? Been posting "useless" exponential graphs since February. Turns out they were not that useless...

 

Sir my graph IS the mortality rate, on log-graph, it clearly shows a decreasing slope therefore no longer exponential.

 

This looks like declining slope to you? Optimistic. Italy much clearer as far as flattening.

[StubbleJumper]

Dude, are you for real?

 

Do you think Xi packaged doses of the corona virus and FedExed them to Canada? Trump PERSONALLY said Fuck Canada.

 

Now I KNOW you are a really smart guy Rb.  You really want to give Xi and China a PASS on this one? Seriously. You KNOW Xi knew exactly

what was happening. Did he stop sending THOUSANDS of people into Toronto, Vancouver, etc?

 

Maybe next to WWII and WWI - this is one of the greatest disasters of the last 100 years - and you are going to defend these guys.

 

I KNOW you are smart Rb - but are you for real??

 

 

Cubsfan,

 

I have stayed out of this silliness all day.  But if you are truly that paranoid, you should be goddamned worried about what the Administration has chosen to do.  The US has kicked its nearest neighbour in the teeth, and anyone who has a paranoid streak should be a bit concerned that its neighbour will gravitate towards China as a result.  Would you like to see your neighbor invite China to establish military bases in the south of Nova Scotia and on Vancouver Island?  How would you like a hundred or so missiles with nuclear warheads located in Manitoba?

 

It's definitely not going to happen, but if you are at all as paranoid as you seem, you should be very distressed that your government is antagonizing its northern neighbour.  Keeping a close relationship with Canada and Mexico should be a no-brainer for the US.

 

 

SJ

[cubsfan]

Dude, are you for real?

 

Do you think Xi packaged doses of the corona virus and FedExed them to Canada? Trump PERSONALLY said Fuck Canada.

 

Now I KNOW you are a really smart guy Rb.  You really want to give Xi and China a PASS on this one? Seriously. You KNOW Xi knew exactly

what was happening. Did he stop sending THOUSANDS of people into Toronto, Vancouver, etc?

 

Maybe next to WWII and WWI - this is one of the greatest disasters of the last 100 years - and you are going to defend these guys.

 

I KNOW you are smart Rb - but are you for real??

 

 

Cubsfan,

 

I have stayed out of this silliness all day.  But if you are truly that paranoid, you should be goddamned worried about what the Administration has chosen to do.  The US has kicked its nearest neighbour in the teeth, and anyone who has a paranoid streak should be a bit concerned that its neighbour will gravitate towards China as a result.  Would you like to see your neighbor invite China to establish military bases in the south of Nova Scotia and on Vancouver Island?  How would you like a hundred or so missiles with nuclear warheads located in Manitoba?

 

It's definitely not going to happen, but if you are at all as paranoid as you seem, you should be very distressed that your government is antagonizing its northern neighbour.  Keeping a close relationship with Canada and Mexico should be a no-brainer for the US.

 

 

SJ

 

What in the world is your problem Stubble? What have I said about Canada? What?

I've been talking about China all day.

 

Are you crazy or what?

[cubsfan]

Cubs, Lets set the record straight.

 

First: you are the only one who used the word “liar”.

 

 

I used the word liar, because you are. You accuse me of hating the poor people of Cuba which is your bold faced lie.

 

Man up for once Cwericb.

 

[StubbleJumper]

Dude, are you for real?

 

Do you think Xi packaged doses of the corona virus and FedExed them to Canada? Trump PERSONALLY said Fuck Canada.

 

Now I KNOW you are a really smart guy Rb.  You really want to give Xi and China a PASS on this one? Seriously. You KNOW Xi knew exactly

what was happening. Did he stop sending THOUSANDS of people into Toronto, Vancouver, etc?

 

Maybe next to WWII and WWI - this is one of the greatest disasters of the last 100 years - and you are going to defend these guys.

 

I KNOW you are smart Rb - but are you for real??

 

 

Cubsfan,

 

I have stayed out of this silliness all day.  But if you are truly that paranoid, you should be goddamned worried about what the Administration has chosen to do.  The US has kicked its nearest neighbour in the teeth, and anyone who has a paranoid streak should be a bit concerned that its neighbour will gravitate towards China as a result.  Would you like to see your neighbor invite China to establish military bases in the south of Nova Scotia and on Vancouver Island?  How would you like a hundred or so missiles with nuclear warheads located in Manitoba?

 

It's definitely not going to happen, but if you are at all as paranoid as you seem, you should be very distressed that your government is antagonizing its northern neighbour.  Keeping a close relationship with Canada and Mexico should be a no-brainer for the US.

 

 

SJ

 

What in the world is your problem Stubble? What have I said about Canada? What?

I've been talking about China all day.

 

Are you crazy or what?

 

Am I crazy?  This is my second post in this thread today and you have been expressing paranoia in any number of posts throughout the day.  If you are truly paranoid, think a little about what the Administration has done to Canada and whether it is even remotely in the long term interests of the US.  Think about what the Administration has done to Cuba and think about whether it is in the long term interests of the US.  Hopefully, all of this blows over, right?

 

SJ

[cubsfan]

 

 

Am I crazy?  This is my second post in this thread today and you have been expressing paranoia in any number of posts throughout the day.  If you are truly paranoid, think a little about what the Administration has done to Canada and whether it is even remotely in the long term interests of the US.  Think about what the Administration has done to Cuba and think about whether it is in the long term interests of the US.  Hopefully, all of this blows over, right?

 

SJ

 

Stubby - get specific with your accusations please. What did I say about Canada? Where have I commented about Canada?

What the fuck is your problem?

[StubbleJumper]

 

 

Am I crazy?  This is my second post in this thread today and you have been expressing paranoia in any number of posts throughout the day.  If you are truly paranoid, think a little about what the Administration has done to Canada and whether it is even remotely in the long term interests of the US.  Think about what the Administration has done to Cuba and think about whether it is in the long term interests of the US.  Hopefully, all of this blows over, right?

 

SJ

 

Stubby - get specific with your accusations please. What did I say about Canada? Where have I commented about Canada?

What the fuck is your problem?

 

You probably haven't.  Drinking and posting on Saturday night is likely not a great combination.  Peace and apologies.

 

SJ

[cubsfan]

 

 

Am I crazy?  This is my second post in this thread today and you have been expressing paranoia in any number of posts throughout the day.  If you are truly paranoid, think a little about what the Administration has done to Canada and whether it is even remotely in the long term interests of the US.  Think about what the Administration has done to Cuba and think about whether it is in the long term interests of the US.  Hopefully, all of this blows over, right?

 

SJ

 

Stubby - get specific with your accusations please. What did I say about Canada? Where have I commented about Canada?

What the fuck is your problem?

 

You probably haven't.  Drinking and posting on Saturday night is likely not a great combination.  Peace and apologies.

 

SJ

 

I had to laugh when I read this- good for you - Peace Stubble - I hope to buy you a beer one of these days.

[meiroy]

Looks like we may be the early inning of governments executing more protectionist trade policies. The parallels with the 1920’s and 1930’s are growing in number and magnitude. “History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes,” as Mark Twain is often reputed to have said.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot–Hawley_Tariff_Act

 

The Tariff Act of 1930 (codified at 19 U.S.C. ch. 4), commonly known as the Smoot–Hawley Tariff or Hawley–Smoot Tariff,[1] was a law that implemented protectionist trade policies in the United States. Sponsored by Senator Reed Smoot and Representative Willis C. Hawley, it was signed by President Herbert Hoover on June 17, 1930. The act raised US tariffs on over 20,000 imported goods.[2]

 

The tariffs under the act, excluding duty-free imports (see Tariff levels below), were the second highest in United States history, exceeded by only the Tariff of 1828.[3] The Act and tariffs imposed by America's trading partners in retaliation were major factors of the reduction of American exports and imports by 67% during the Depression.[4] Economists and economic historians have a consensus view that the passage of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff exacerbated the Great Depression.[5]

 

Deglobalization started well before this, just as Trump didn't start any trade war, it will simply accelerate.  I'm all for it, we should have new tiered globalization where only countries that share our values get free access to our consumers. The rest would have only limited access or none. So, for example, you get a country like the Islamic Republic of Iran with the need of our consumers, services, technology, food etc.  Want it? Join us.  Don't like our values? Fuck off.  Developing country? Show us how you are setting up a democratic system with the rule of law. Don't want to? Fuck off.  A developing country going in the right direction? Get our full support.  There are plenty of countries in South America and in Asia that are going in the right direction but we chose not to really support them just because something might cost a cent cheaper somewhere else, but then indirectly pay much more for it later.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[cubsfan]

 

I agree. Populism was on the rise before this. I think this will give it a much bigger push. Like, shouldn't we be manufacturing drugs in our country?

 

If you value your defense industries - why not drugs, medical equipment and tech. Control our destiny with our allies. Less dependence on China.

 

I agree. The rich have gotten richer by selling us out to China. The economy is so broken we have to keep interest rates low and run huge deficits or it'll implode. Most people don't have that much money....so of course things aren't going to function normally.

 

Paul - you might enjoy this Kyle Bass interview that discusses the bipartisan corruption and risk associated with the China relationship.

The military aspects are quite facinating as well.

 

 

[meiroy]

Hey Cubs, I am no particular fan of China. But they did come to Canada's aid when our supposed best friend to the south flatly refused - or did you miss that fact. And unlike some I don't hate every poor person who happens to live in another country.

 

To be fair, it’s not just the US, 68 countries have banned exports of PPE..

https://globalnews.ca/news/6769162/canada-medical-supplies-coronavirus/

 

Germany blocks truck full of protective masks headed for Switzerland

https://www.thelocal.com/20200309/germany-blocks-protective-masks-headed-for-switzerland

 

More important question is not whether US will provide masks but why a so-called advanced nation like Canada cannot even produce enough masks for its own people..

What I was getting at is it's not that Canada can't produce. It's that Canada doesn't produce. It mostly buys from 3M.

 

An N95 respirator while looking simple is actually a fairly sophisticated product. So it takes time to setup an operation and a supply chain to mass produce them. You can't just flip a switch. But Canada can produce them, and so can Germany, and France, and the UK, and Switzerland, and Austria, and Sweden, and etc. They all have the technology and engineering capacity to do it.

 

So now once the decide to do it local (for a bit more money), cause you've decided to fuck with their supply, do you think that they'll task a foreign controlled company like 3M to do it for them? Or do you think they'll have one of their local companies do it? It'll probably cost a little bit more money since the local companies are not as good at it as 3M is, but now they've already committed to spending more on masks.

 

Expand this thinking to other medical products. A lot of them come from American companies. They're not low margin products either. So lots of shareholder value destroyed there.

 

And the logical next step is for Canada and Europe and Asia to do something about Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook (and every other US company with a monopoly type position in a vertical). If the US can no longer be trusted as a trading partner then it makes sense to me each Country/region needs local champions in all these verticals. Shades of Huawei. Perhaps similar to what China did (restricting these companies so local champions could grow). If the US is going to act like China then other countries had better get at making the transition. And this would be the ideal time to do it (when the economy is already a shit storm). The bottom line is everyone loses. Should be obvious but politics, just like in the 1930’s, will make a terrible situation much worse.

 

I agree. Populism was on the rise before this. I think this will give it a much bigger push. Like, shouldn't we be manufacturing drugs in our country?

 

Indeed we should only accept and manufacture drugs, drug components and supplement components in locations where there's good quality control and transparency and we can be certain of the outcome.  Right now, it's not happening.

 

It should be considered an essential industry just like agriculture and subsidized if necessary.

 

 

 

 

[randomep]

 

Pretty much--All except Italy continue to look exponential to me on mortality, but what do I know? Been posting "useless" exponential graphs since February. Turns out they were not that useless...

 

Sir my graph IS the mortality rate, on log-graph, it clearly shows a decreasing slope therefore no longer exponential.

 

This looks like declining slope to you? Optimistic. Italy much clearer as far as flattening.

 

Hey meiroy, I just revealed a bad trait of mine. I don't read carefully, I agree with you all EXCEPT italy are exponential...... let's just let this drop.

 

[Investor20]

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

 

Exponential trend continues alarmingly in many countries: U.S., Spain, France, UK, German. Italy *might* be seeing a slope decline/flattening.

 

Some countries (i.e. UK) have close to 10% dead of confirmed cases which likely indicates lack of testing. This is in contrast to Germany where it's close to 1%. Discrepancy in age of those infected cannot explain such a gap alone.

 

Here in Iceland there have been tests made by random sampling of the population. Based on random sampling, around 0.3%  of the population tests positive. Obviously, this is not representative for other countries or populations. In Iceland most of the effort has gone to tracing infections and quarantining people who have been in contact with infected people. By now, over 50% of people who test positive are already in quarantine when tested.

 

https://www.covid.is/data

 

Yeah, Iceland seems to be doing well, but a small country with a concentrated population in a small area (like Singapore) would be much easier to manage w something like this.

 

The random sampling showing only 0.3% infected obliterates the "this disease has been widespread for a long time" thesis. Makes you realize how impossible achieving herd immunity will be (without having large magnitude of deaths/healthcare overload).

 

By now, over 50% of people who test positive are already in quarantine when tested.

 

That's excellent.

 

From Iceland link:

 

  Confirmed infections: 1417

  Total samples:  23640

 

    (1417/23640) * 100 = 5.99%. 

 

    How are you getting 0.3%?

 

Assuming your random sampling comment is correct, 6% of Iceland being infected with a swab test that does not even tell people who are already infected, nonsymptomatic and cleared of virus in a country we dont consider to have Covid outbreak is pretty high.

[Guest]

 

I agree. Populism was on the rise before this. I think this will give it a much bigger push. Like, shouldn't we be manufacturing drugs in our country?

 

If you value your defense industries - why not drugs, medical equipment and tech. Control our destiny with our allies. Less dependence on China.

 

I agree. The rich have gotten richer by selling us out to China. The economy is so broken we have to keep interest rates low and run huge deficits or it'll implode. Most people don't have that much money....so of course things aren't going to function normally.

 

Paul - you might enjoy this Kyle Bass interview that discusses the bipartisan corruption and risk associated with the China relationship.

The military aspects are quite facinating as well.

 

 

Hey cubs, yeah I don't agree with what a lot of what Bass or Bannon say but these guys are spot on in this regard.