Covid-19, Foresights and Hindsights

Covid-19, Foresights and Hindsights

After a draconian economic response to the Covid-19 pandemic, some parts of the country (and the world) are beginning to relent a little, and social and business activity is restarting. 

As one would expect during and after something as disruptive to human life and activities as this virus and the efforts taken to mitigate it have been, blame and recriminations abound.  Most thinking people all over the world are really pissed off at the Chinese communist party for hiding the scope of the outbreak in late 2019, allowing the virus to escape the Wuhan area of China, and infect the rest of the world.  There have been calls that some of our debt to China pay for some of the economic impact they caused.

Other anger is directed at various governments and leaders for not being seers and oracles early in the pandemic spread, and taking earlier actions to save more lives.  More anger is focused on these same governments and leaders for taking such drastic steps to save lives that it broke the economies of those countries, and also broke the livelihoods and pocketbooks of many millions of people.  Of course, President Trump, a key figure in the U.S. response to the Corona virus crisis, is always wrong in the eyes of the antagonistic media, and is blamed for everything.

It's amazing the alacrity with which humanity responded to the mitigation efforts called for by the medical and scientific communities.  We left our jobs, “socially distanced”, “sheltered in place”, donned masks and gloves, and placed ourselves virtually under house arrest, with hardly a whimper, (at least at first).

But now that we have been herded into our pens by our ovine masters and manipulators, many are having second thoughts.  Did we really need to break the whole economy?  Was this Corona virus really as contagious and deadly as what we were told?  Numbers are being manipulated by ostensibly knowledgeable “experts” who are fueling this contrarian swell by anecdotal commentary and manipulation of the mortality data, now that there is actual data.

The actual, reported, easily accessible, mortality numbers say that as of the end of April, 2020, over 5% of U.S. Covid-19 cases, nearly 7% of world cases, and nearly 8% of New York State cases result in death.  This compares to 0.1 – 0.14 % for recent flu seasons.  Simple math says that Covid-19 is some 50 – 80 times more deadly than conventional flu.  Admittedly, the true number of cases (the denominator) is greater, since we haven’t accurately defined all of the cases by testing, and we may have exaggerated the number of deaths (the nominator), by classifying other deaths as caused by Covid-19.  However. it doesn’t take a math genius to see that it would take a tremendous amount of manipulation to get the death rate for Covid-19 to the same order of magnitude as conventional flu.

A look at the numbers for the 1917-18 Spanish Flu shows that 50 million people died world-wide, an estimated 10% fatality rate.  In the U.S., 675,000 people died, an imputed mortality rate of about 2%.  By all principles of rationality, it would appear that the present Corona virus outbreak is acting more like the massive 1917-18 Spanish Flu pandemic, than a normal flu virus.

So, rather than acknowledging that drastic action needed to be taken, based on the best world-wide expert medical and scientific evidence at the time, and that we needed to respond as we did to save literally millions of lives, second-guessers and manipulators of actual data now that there is some history of mitigation efforts to slow down the spread of the virus, posit critiques of the actions originally taken, and propose alternatives.

Some of these arguments are compelling.  For example, why do we have the same mitigation rules for Montana, as Manhattan?  Why is Costco allowed to stay open while mom and pop shops have to close?  Why are twenty-somethings lumped together with eighty-somethings?  The ER doctors from Bakersfield California also make the point, why are we quarantining healthy people and lowering their natural resistance to infections?

The sad thing is that we have not come together as a nation as a result of the crisis.  Instead of pulling together, our politicians take advantage of the crisis for more “politics as usual”.  The Left position seems to be - “Keep it all shut down until there is an effective vaccine next year (and incidentally after we win the presidential election and the congress in a completely broken economy).  If you don’t you will kill grandma and grandpa”.  The right says “Let the states and localities phase in an opening.”  To the howls of “Trump is not taking responsibility, etc.”  Remember, everything Trumps does or does not do, is wrong.

To sum up, governments all over the world, pretty much severely curtailed their economies and told the populations to stay home.  They did this because the best medical and scientific minds in the world projected that if we didn’t do this, millions would die from an unchecked spread of the virus.  They considered this novel Covad-19 virus to be as unique as the H1N1 virus of the “Spanish flu” in 1917-1918.  Mitigation efforts are resulting, generally, as the epidemiological modelers predicted.  Not spot on, and changing with actual results, but essentially trending like a highly contagious virus, as the experts said.

And we’re opening up.  Trump and his scientific/medical experts, and the respective governors and city fathers, with cautions and precautions about the virus popping up in spots as they go.  Taking a lesson from the 1917-1918 Spanish flu pandemic, there is a danger that there can be another major outbreak of Covid-19 as the next flu season develops later this year.  The one thing positive about this possibility is that we are infinitely better prepared to address and contain it than we were when the Chinese communists originally sent it to us earlier this year.  Also, by then, we may have vaccines to try, at least on an experimental basis.

Ray Gruszecki

April 29, 2020

Horror Stories

Horror Stories

All of the attempts to prevent Donald Trump’s election, and then his removal from office have failed, in spite of the continuing efforts of the residual Obama administrative state, and the extreme left biased media to “get Trump”, by whatever means, mostly foul.  Remember the “Hollywood access tapes”, the Steele dossier, the Stormy Daniels allegations, Mike Flynn, Michael Cohen, Roger Stone, the perverted FISA warrants, the $30 million Russian collusion investigation, the Pelosi-Schiff star chamber “impeachment”?  And on and on and on, ad Infinium.

And now the Corona virus, where Trump remembers the constitution, and does not take on dictatorial powers like another arrogant New Yorker did during the second world war, but allows the federalism inherent in our system of government to work.  He gets the federal government to help the states as necessary, but allows the diverse states to act for their individual best interests.  Just like the founders intended.

Any credit from the dems and their media accomplices?  Not a chance.  Instead Pelosi & co. slow down the aid bills in congress designed to help those facing economic ruin from the crisis, by loading these bills up with democrat socialist “pork”.  And the media continues their biased propaganda against everything that Trump does to lead the country out of the crisis.

Since Trump seems to have been working 24/7, and 20-hour days, he blows off a little steam during daily briefings, and, he is roundly excoriated for it by the Stelters and Acostas and Maddows.  The latest from Stelter is to recycle the old garbage that Trump is “unfit”.  Bruni, Krugman and all the other New York Times amateur psychiatrists and political geniuses posit that based on the same polls that were so accurate in the 2016 election, Trump is heading toward defeat and will bring the senate with him.  They look forward to Joe Biden’s ascendancy, (if they can get him to remember what he is running for).

So, they paint these horror stories in the anti-Trump media to comfort themselves that even though past efforts have failed, there are still ways to force the “mean orange monster” out.

Well, I have a horror story back at the Acela, coastal and urban elites and their media allies.  Four more years of Donald Senior, which is almost a given, followed by eight years of Donald Junior, follow by eight years of Ivanka, followed by eight years of Eric.  By then, Barron should be out of Wharton, have some experience, and be ready for the job. And the country should be self-reliant, protect innocent babies, and not be afraid to fly American flags all over the place, as symbols of our patriotism.

Ray Gruszecki

April 28, 2020

Eat Tide Pods Washed down with Lysol

Eat Tide Pods Washed down with Lysol

I normally do not watch the broadcast TV Sunday morning “news” shows, ABC’s “This Week”, NBC’s “Meet the Press”, and CBS’ “Face the Nation”, because of their unrelenting leftist bias.  They do not disappoint.  I sampled these shows this morning and found pretty much the same – snide and snarky remarks for any involvement by Trump this past week.  The biggest issue this morning seemed to be that Trump recommended that we drink disinfectant to treat Covad-19 internally.  This is about as bad an example of the media taking an innocent, (though thoughtless) comment, and morphing it into some monstrous concoction.

Also, Trump never learns, or really just flies in the media’s face.  He hears a new fact or idea, and ruminates on it out loud at a news conference.  He is typically taken out of context, or blatantly falsified.  The disinfectant issue is just one of myriad such attempts by the mainstream media to discredit him and make him look like the inconsiderate “great orange monster”.  Trump could be discussing the cure for cancer at one of his briefings, and the New York Times headline would read “Trump Supports Cancer”.  If he talked about radiation treatment, the NYT headline would be “Trump Backs Nuking Patients”

Most fair-minded, thinking people will cluck their tongues and think “quel dommage”, - “just another leftist attack on Trump”.  But many of our more ovine minded electorate take the Sunday morning news shows as fair criticisms, and consequently, their opinions are guided toward the biased, hate-Trump crowd.

Hopefully, some modicum of reason and fairness will prevail in America, and people will say “enough already”.  If there were a truly viable alternative to replacing Trump for his mis-speaks, if not his mis-deeds, in the coming election, like a Jack Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, or even a Bill Clinton, things would be easier.  But Joe Biden?  C’mon, man!  And all that that brings with it, - Pelosi, (or worse), “the squad” setting a communist-like theme and nanny state in the background?

I don’t think that there is any reasonable alternative to Trump in the November elections.  As I’ve said many times, “he’s an a-hole, but he’s our a-hole”.   Hopefully some time before the election the economy will be resurging, and let’s hope that the virus doesn’t return in full force.  Forget the media BS.  Forget the polls run by the same media.  We just need to be honest and fair and pro-American, and not taken in by the hypocritical machinations of democrat-socialism, identity politics, open borders and sanctuary cities and states.

Ray Gruszecki

April 26, 2020

Still Divided During the Corona Virus Crisis

Still Divided During the Corona Virus Crisis

I understand that many left-wing democrats, and obviously left-wing news media, absolutely hate the “great orange monster” from New York.  After all, he really rained on their secular, identity politics, globalization, kill industry, parade, and he beat the pants-suit off of their 90% certain champion in 2016.  He is never to be forgiven for such an affront to the Acela, coastal and urban elites.  Multiple coups, legal or illegal, must be perpetrated against him until he is drummed out of office.

I also understand that he is not a nice guy.  I would not want to work for him.  He is arrogant, opinionated, impatient, bloviating, and has an overpowering “my way or the highway” personality as a boss.  He is a pragmatic businessman, and not a politician, and he makes short shrift of the bureaucratic niceties of slow-acting government.  His enemies, which are many, accuse him of megalomania and selfish egotism, and these seem to be manifestations of his showmanship, rather than debilitating defects of character.

And he could really give a damn less.  He came into the presidency promising changes to the country that he had developed during a long career in the crucible of New York and international real estate, and during his forays into Hollywood and public entertainment.  After being elected, he has done, or is doing, what he promised, another departure from typical politics.

I did not start out being a big fan of Donald Trump, but I did predict his success early on.  I was based and lived in the New York City area for over 20 years while Trump built his real estate “empire”.  I did not appreciate seeing “TRUMP” all over the city, but I also observed that he refused to fail.  He would declare bankruptcy, shake off the construction dust or the casino chips, reinvent himself in other ways, and continue on to another success.  It was this resilience that I thought would win him the presidency.  He was like the Eveready Bunny – he would just keep going and going and going.

I voted for Trump (consider the alternative), but I don’t support everything he does, for all the good that does me, or the millions that think like me,  Because Trump is Trump, and by God, if he wants to tweet inanities at 3 am, or argue tooth and nail with that blonde twenty-something reporter, or exaggerate something beyond reason, he will do so with no apology, because Trump is Trump, and, by golly, he ain’t changing.

What drives me to basically support Trump are not only the fact that he has mostly applied sound conservative (and libertarian) principles to domestic and foreign issues, and is stopping the left’s inexorable advance to an apologetic, secular, Godless, identity politics based society, but also the continuing, rank, unrelenting unfairness of the leftist forces massed against him.

One would think that with the attack on our whole country by the Chinese-sourced Covad-19 virus, all factions of our society would pull together in a common cause and stop the political bickering.  Not so.  Instead of backing the administration, the same leftist mob, (the only noun that fits), continues to sow division.  “It’s the Trumpvirus”.  First, it’s racist and xenophobic to close the border to Chinese travelers, then Trump didn’t act fast enough.  And on and on.

Setting politics aside for a moment, I, along with many like me, are rational, thinking, fair-minded people.  Even acknowledging the perceived character issues mentioned above, what has been done to Donald Trump from the moment he stepped on that elevator in 2015, is unconscionable.  The personal, ad hominem attacks against him and his family and members of his cabinet and administration, have oozed hatred and vituperation way beyond anything ever seen on the political scene.  As if personal attacks were not bad enough, the left-over administrative state from Obama’s government illegally perverted the FISA, Independent Council and whistle blower processes to attempt to remove the president by whatever means, foul or foul.  Only now, with the Barr and Durham investigations, are the extent of these illegal operations being revealed.

Other presidents have been disliked.  Two other arrogant New Yorkers, Teddy and Franklin, but these Roosevelts may have been disliked, but they were supported by the whole country in times of war or emergency.  A more recent example is Bush 43, well disliked by the same leftist elements and media as now, but remember the universal backing of the government after the towers fell, by all of the people.  Remember the American flags and patriotism?  Where is it now, democrats, New York Times, Washington Post, et al, during this pandemic crisis? 

So, don’t talk to me, or to millions of Americans about being MAGA bearing, bible and gun hugging, “deplorables”.  Those leftist inspired epithets are meaningless to those of us who are fair, and recognize the gross unfairness and hypocrisy of the leftists and the leftist media mob when we see it.  What we say to them - Shape up and be Americans, not members of the fictional, so-called “Resistance”, who are continuing to divide America.

Ray Gruszecki

April 24, 2020

Pelosi, et al, Again?

Pelosi, et al, Again?

Lest we American voters get distracted again like we evidently did during the 2018 mid-term elections, we may have Nancy Pelosi, “the squad” and a majority democrat House of Representatives impeding any meaningful legislation after the 2020 election, save “the green new deal” and other such democrat socialist and identity politics idiocy.

Remember what happened in 2018.  The left and the “deep state” and their media accomplices, had so slandered the Trump presidency with the Mueller Russia Collusion investigation and other ad hominem attacks, that the electorate was conflicted and confused by all of the ersatz charges.  Under cover of distraction, in moved the leftist operatives like Soros, Bloomberg and Steyer, and their very deep pockets, to turn Virginia and other states blue enough for the democrats to win a majority in the House.  

Only now, with the IG report and the continuing Barr and Durham investigations, is the true attempted coup of Trump by the leftover Obama administrative state being exposed.  But in the meantime, we have Pelosi, tearing up the State of the Union address, attempting another coup with an ill-conceived impeachment, and delaying relief to small businesses and workers because of the Covid-19 shutdown of the country while she eats gourmet ice cream in her San Francisco mansion.

And if we don’t watch out and stay vigilant, Soros and Steyer and Bloomberg are out there trying to repeat 2018, and bring Pelosi, or worse, to the leadership of the House. 

We need to apply plain old grass roots republican politics out there at the local, state and federal level, particularly in the mid-America swing states that are so important in national elections, but also at the local congressional district levels, because that’s what House congressmen and women represent.  It may be OK for Trump to hold a rally and fire up a constituency that consists primarily of his base, and these rallies are exciting, but they really do not specifically reach the undecided neutral voters that Nixon called part of the “silent majority”.

Trump is not really a politician, and often tweets or says things that seem offensive to some voters, particularly women and minorities.  His plain Bronx or Queens rhetoric normally means no offense, but that’s the way it comes across, particularly after being strained through the anti-Trump media mill.  He is learning, but he sometimes turns away voters that need to be won back by plain old local grass roots politicking.

So, we really need to work to elect republican senators and House members to more than a few seat majorities in both house of congress if we expect anything to get accomplished in Washington in 2020-2024.  All of this assumes that Trump wins another term against a very weak Joe Biden, and after his fairly well-received handling of the corona virus crisis.  That is not a given, because people are really pissed off at being furloughed or laid off from their jobs and being made to “shelter in place”, and the media’s “blame Trump” beat is ever present.  But working for a majority congress will also work toward the president’s reelection.

Ray Gruszecki

April 22, 2020

On Covid-19 and All

On Covid-19 and All

I accept very little that I hear from our politicians or our conventional news media of various stripes.  There are non-biased sources of information available, and in situations like this corona virus issue, I try to go back to the data and to what I’ve found in the past to be reliable sources. 

My first, somewhat flippant response to the looming pandemic was “so what?  We have epidemics and pandemics all the time,” I pulled out cases and deaths for “normal” flu seasons and pandemics, and for various other ones in the 20^th century.  “Normal” flu, for which we have effective vaccines, kills 30-60,000 Americans per year.  The mortality rate is somewhere around 0.10-0.15%, but the CDC will tell you that this is an estimate, since the number of cases (the denominator) is not really known with any precision.  (Sound familiar?)

Similarly, the major pandemic outbreaks, (Asian flu, Hong Kong flu, swine flu) killed 15,000 – 155,000 Americans, with mortality rates of anywhere from 0.02% - 1.9%, so what was all the brouhaha about this corona virus?  The big outlier pandemic was the Spanish flu of 1918-1919, that was said to infect 35 million Americans and kill 675,000 of us.  Now this was serious, but it took place in a primitive America with no vaccines and abysmal sanitation and health practices.

In continuing to research the issue, I realized that just throwing numbers of deaths around from flu seasons or recent pandemics were ill-advised, when it came to covad-19, for several reasons that were being pointed out by respected health professionals throughout the world, including those standing up at daily press briefings in Washington.  Some of these reasons were: Transmissibility and contagion – Covad-19 can be air borne, person to person, up to six feet, or by touch, on surfaces, for many hours, if not days.  Exponential spread – early results from Washington State, Italy and other locations showed how fast the virus could spread, from a few cases, to a rapid exponential increase in cases.  Mortality rate – Though hampered by lack of testing of new cases, mortality rates were running as high as 5-6%, compared to 0.10-0.15% for “normal” flu.  This is a factor of 50 times more deadly, and even more for older or weaker victims.

Admittedly, mortality rates are inaccurate, since not all cases have been tested and identified, and also, deaths from other causes can have been represented as Covid-19 deaths.  But even so, even if there are twice as many cases as currently known, and say 50% fewer deaths from this virus, the mortality numbers are still orders of magnitude higher for Covid-19, than that for more conventional flu viruses.  So rather that a factor of 50, a factor of 20 or even 10 times more deadly is still pretty serious.  

Notwithstanding the undeniably true danger to society posed by the virus, I have to admit that I have concerns about a number of issues relating to how the world (and our country) has responded to this covad-19 crisis.

One of the continuing concerns that I have is that we broke our economy on the advice of unelected expert doctors, somewhat questionable models (at least at first), and will be printing money as fast as we can to try to shore the economy back up.  But it’s not cool to express it that way, because the preponderance of all expert medical thought is that it was all necessary to prevent upwards of 2.5 million American deaths, and God knows how many world-wide deaths, maybe 10-20 million?

Another concern is how ovine was our response to the call for leaving our jobs, shutting down the economy and sequestering ourselves in our residences.  Let’s make a note of that in our “totalitarian notebook”, right next to Russia, 1920’s and Germany, 1930’s.  But we should asterisk our constitution, our checks and balances and our federalist system, as protecting us somewhat.

Not sure whether that docile response is the result of that permissiveness resulting from identity politics and the nanny state, or response to the “big orange bully” in Washington, - probably a little of each.  In any case, I would have expected a more seasoned and libertarian response, at least in intellectual dialogue, to the government taking over our lives.

The country seems to be coming out of its torpor, and loud fringes of the political spectrum are again taking to the warm, spring streets.  How much of this is truly grass roots, and how much of it is fomented by right- and left-wing action groups is problematic.  If there’s “hate Trump’ or pro-leftist theme, look for Soros’ or Bloomberg’s or Steyer’s money.  If it’s right oriented, maybe Koch or Blackstone Group or Tim Mellon.

Of course, we’ll get the economy going again, but what lessons from this?

Truisms – The economy will become healthy again.  People will die.  There will be loud howls from the left that this is cause and effect.

In fact, these are somewhat mutually exclusive.  People will die whether the economy remains shut down or not.  Whether more people will die when the economy is reopened is not calculable.  Compared to what? Not opening the economy for two years?  Five years?  Some people will die no matter when we open the economy, as long as it is not on the exponential part of the death curve.

More truisms – The 2-3 Trillion (with a “T”) that is being used for economic relief, and another $2 trillion for infrastructure being discussed, is not coming from productivity, at least not immediately.  It’s coming from borrowing, which means eventually from the printing presses, and inflation, notwithstanding the early chicanery between the Treasury and the Federal Reserve.  On the other hand, with an economy that was quite healthy before all this happened, others will buy our relatively safe debt, even China.  How’s that for a “come around”. 

We will change as we come out of it.  We’ll pay more attention to our health, cleanliness and sanitation.  We’ll wash our hands more and perhaps shake hands less.  We’ll take greater advantage of our conferencing technologies and realize we really don’t have to do that long commute every day to be in front of an office computer when we have a perfectly good computer with conferencing capability at home.  Similar for some church, social and intellectual meetings.  We may have to give up the casseroles or snacks, but save miles of driving and carbon emissions.

There will be dialogue about how much more susceptible to the corona virus were black and brown minorities of the country.  Our left will play a ”racist” theme and call for more money to further enthrall these communities.  A more positive approach would stress better living conditions, a better diet, more attention to health, sanitation, and cleanliness, basically the same as for all society, without any racial or ethnic bias.

Other changes will be to continue the trend toward populism, patriotism and self sufficiency started in this country and in in the EU, and in much of non-Chinese Communist China.  There will be a move away from fragmented globalism and manufacturing almost everything in China because it’s cheap.  Not so cheap after all, when it will take the U.S. upwards of $4 trillion to dig ourselves out of the economic hole from the corona virus, caused and allowed to spread by the Chinese communists.

Ray Gruszecki

April 21, 2020

China, Machiavelli, Sun Tzu

China, Machiavelli, Sun Tzu

If I were Machiavellian , or more appropriately, Sun Tzu-ian, I would posit that China’s recent actions concerning the origin and handling of the corona virus was organized by the Chinese communist party, to weaken the West and to increase and ensure Chinese hegemony throughout the world.  Not to say that they infected patient zero and his girl-friend in Wuhan with the virus, but they cynically covered up and took advantage of the outbreak as soon as they knew about it, and let the virus escape from Wuhan and from China to the rest of the world.  It is because of this duplicity that one must question China’s role as to where the virus started and how it spread.

Patient zero most likely worked at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and accidentally carried the dread corona virus outside of the lab.

We know China’s avowed purpose, as defined by Xi Jinping and discussed by John Mauldin of Forbes, “Xi’s vision of the Chinese Communist Party controlling the state and eventually influencing and even controlling the rest of the world is clear. These are not merely words for the consumption of the masses. They are instructions to party members.”  Their recent aggressive “island forming” in the South China Sea, and their world-wide “Belt and Road Initiative” to buy into (and control) the infrastructure of much of the world, are cases in point.  I’m cynical enough about the Chinese communists to think that they would like nothing better than to take advantage of a world brought to its economic knees by a virus that originated in China.

 Just consider how the whole situation unfolded and the actions of the Chinese communist party.

It appears after further investigations that the virus did not originate in the live animal “wet markets” of Wuhan.  Patient zero apparently worked at the lab in Wuhan, that was investigating corona-type viruses, and he was infected by the virus that caused the pandemic.  The lab is fairly close to the wet market, and the virus originally came from bats, as widely reported.  This could have happened as early as November, and the virus started to spread in the city of Wuhan, a relatively large Chinese city of about 11 million people.

Rather than immediately containing the spread of the virus and informing the world through the World Health Organization and other international public health entities, the Chinese government covered up the incident, lied about its spread and suppressed any news about the outbreak.  Apparently, the WHO perpetuated the Chinese cover-up and parroted the Chinese lies, including eventually the contagion of the virus, the high mortality rate and human to human transmission. In the meantime, before any mention of the impending pandemic, Chinese buyers literally cornered the world market on personal protection equipment (PPE)

Also, thousands of Chinese travelers spread throughout the world carrying the virus. Western reporters were expelled from China, ostensibly because of President Trump’s actions against the Chinese propaganda press in the U.S., but really to ensure no accurate western reports on the virus.  Also, during this time, the CCP took draconian measures to stop the spread in Wuhan, some reports saying that infected people were locked in their residences and left to die.

Apparently, we had reliable intelligence sources that Trump trusted, because he closed the U.S border to travelers from China fairly early, on January 31^st, during the impeachment fiasco, to the howls of “racist”, “xenophobe”, and worse.  He repeatedly takes personal credit for this decision, and we are all glad that he did it, because it did save countless American lives.  But c’mon, really?  He’s not clairvoyant.

When the pandemic could no longer be hidden, numbers of cases and deaths were finally released by the Chinese communists.  These numbers were quite low for China’s massive population and apparently were released to reflect how efficiently the Chinese had handled the situation in Wuhan and in all of China.  Only the large count of funeral urns in Wuhan attested to the real situation there.  And the Chinese propaganda mill went to work, first accusing the U.S. military of releasing the virus, and later threatening to withhold exports of necessary pharmaceuticals to the U.S.

The Chinese did shut down some of their large population centers and much of its manufacturing capacity like much of the world did.  They apparently, and brutally stopped the spread of the virus within China, (or only reported a fraction of the real numbers).  Since the whole massive country of 1,400,000,000 people and all of the manufacturing is under the totalitarian thumb of the central communist government, shutdown and startup were dictated directly by the government, and the shutdown/startup cycle proceeded rather quickly compared to representative countries with federalist structures, functional legislatures, judiciaries and checks and balances.  So China then fairly quickly turned some of their massive manufacturing capacity to producing and gratuitously supplying PPE and anti-corona virus items for the rest of the world, representing themselves as saviors of the world, rather than the hatchet men that allowed the virus to spread.  An interesting side note is that some of the equipment that China supplied to Spain, Turkey and The Netherlands failed to work properly.

In the meantime, the world has lost 140,000 people (as of April 16), and stands to lose, some say, upwards of $5 Trillion (with a “T”) in economic value as a result of the virus.  What better way to fulfill the Chinese communists’ avowed plan to become the preeminent economic, political and military force by the mid- 21^st century?  Do we still think, like some previous administrations that the Chinese communists are responsible citizens of the world, and not practitioners of the tenets of Machiavelli, of Sun Tzu, in addition to Mao, Lenin and Stalin?

Ray Gruszecki

April 16, 2020

Why No Unity Against This Crisis?

Why No Unity Against This Crisis?

Why do most of the democrats and their mainstream media backers continue with their “hate Trump” campaign, even in light of this corona virus pandemic which has devastated the U.S. and the rest of the world?  Clearly, these leftists have not absorbed the message that we are all in this together, and that hating Trump and petty liberal issues like identity politics should be set aside while we all sacrifice to work our way out of this horrible scourge.

We did this as a united country after the 911 attacks on the twin towers in 2001.  Democrats were not big fans of G.W. Bush at the time, particularly after the Florida “hanging chad” fiasco.  But they acted as Americans, rather than leftist partisans, after that terrorist attack.  Remember the bi-partisan support of our country, the patriotism and the proliferation of American flags, by all Americans, including democrats, when we were threatened by terrorists?

Well now we are threatened by something more insidious than terrorists – a silent and invisible threat that has killed more Americans that the terrorists did.  Instead of cohesion and support and patriotism, we have continued sniping against President Trump by the political left and the mainstream media.  This is not just an opposing opinion.  All one has to do is sample the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC on any given day to see their leftist stance that Trump can do no right, and everything he does is either wrong or has nefarious intent.

Why does this hatred of Trump continue, even during a national disaster like this corona virus pandemic?  Surely, like after 911, if there is any time to rally behind our president, no matter how disliked he is during normal times, that time to rally behind him is now.  Yet the leftist hatred continues with almost a religious fervor.  And that’s the rub.  The leftist hatred has become faith-based, like a religion, and cannot be mitigated by either reason, or a national emergency.

So what’s the basis for this hatred of Trump?  Yes, he sometimes seems brutish and venal.  He sometimes comes across as a showman, rather than president.  He tweets too much.  He elaborates and exaggerates too much.  He is loose with his facts.  But these are not characteristics that would generate an almost religious hatred.  One can think of similar foibles in other presidents.  LBJ’s earthiness, for example.  FDR’s obverse patricianism. JFK’s womanizing.  And on and on.  Most republicans were not exactly enamored with Bill Clinton or Barrack Obama, but they did not develop anywhere near this kind of hatred of them.

No, the almost religious hatred of Trump stems from two sources.  Firstly, he won the presidential election in 2016 against massive odds.  It was Hillary’s presidency. He had no right to win.  Second, he is the anthesis of the democrats’ philosopher king, Saint Barrack Obama, and everything Obama stood for, apologia in international relations, identity politics, massive government regulation of business, the nanny state, open borders, late term abortion on demand, and all the trappings of the liberal socialist state that Obama was establishing, (mostly by dubious executive orders), and that Hillary was to continue.  Instead, here comes Trump, and undoes it all, and lo and behold, the economy takes off, and we have unprecedented prosperity. (At least until the corona virus pandemic).

And of course, Trump does all of this as a pragmatic businessman, but with the flourish of a Hollywood showman.  Since he is not a politician, he manages to offend nearly everyone with his tweets and his posturing, but he is literally the anti-Christ to the leftist democrats, and particularly to the mainstream media, who continue to fuel and exacerbate the country’s divisions.

So that’s my theory on why the hatred of Trump by the leftists and their mainstream media accomplices, is unbreakable, even during a national crisis like this one.  There are exceptions that seem to mitigate this hatred.  Several leftist governors and mayors who have shown enmity to Trump in the past, have worked successfully and praised his administration on handling the medical and social situations in their cities and states.  So, there is some hope.  But with the NYT, WaPo, CNN, MSNBC and other anti-Trump media beating the drums of hatred and division, a positive, united, patriotic approach to this crisis is impossible.

Ray Gruszecki

April 10, 2020

Corona Virus Models and More Numbers

Corona Virus Models and More Numbers

I’m an old engineer.  Give me some numbers, and I’ll give you some estimates.  In addition to reported cases and deaths from the corona virus in the U.S., the world and localities of interest to me, I’ve been looking at the IHME (Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation) models that Dr. Deborah Brix has referenced in the daily national corona virus task force meetings.  These meetings can otherwise euphemistically be known as “Trump Health Celebrity Apprentice”.

The IHME model is known as the Dr. Christopher Murray University of Washington model after its originator.  The First incarnations of this model at the end of March, were projecting 82,141 deaths in the U.S. by August 4th^t, with an uncertainty range of 39,174 – 141,995.  It was explained that these first models contained Chinese data of dubious accuracy, and also a lot of incomplete data from the U.S. and other countries.  All of these models were developed for hospital planning, and not to identify worst case scenarios.

As more and complete data became available in late March, the model predicted higher numbers of deaths through early August.  The April 1st model showed 93,765 predicted deaths by early August with an uncertainty range of 41,399 – 177,381.

IHME’s explanation: “Our model’s increase in nationwide deaths since the March 31 release is primarily driven by increasing death tolls in states that previously had very few COVID-19 deaths. States with more COVID-19 deaths, such as New York and Washington, show far less fluctuation across daily updates. If the number of cumulative COVID-19 deaths rise by state, we expect increasing accuracy for predictions across states.”

As additional and more accurate data continues to inform the model, and as the number of virus cases seems to be peaking and starting to flatten in some major areas like New York City and New Jersey, The IHME estimate of deaths in the U.S. by August has decreased.  The April 4 estimate was 81,766, and the April 7 estimate is 60,415, with an uncertainty range of 31,211 - 126,703.  IHME advise that their latest model includes better and more complete data, improved modelling techniques and incorporates the fact that the virus is peaking in some major areas.

Having bounced all of these modelled numbers around, it may be time for some historical perspective.  U.S. deaths from plain old flu was 61,100 in 2017-18, and 34,200 in 2018-19.  We’ve lost 12-18,000 people from swine flu in 2009, some 100,000 from influenza A or H3N2 in 1968 and 116,000 from Asian flu or H2N2 in 1957.  We did not shut the country down for any of these past pandemics.  We just “rode them out”.

But we could not “just ride this corona virus out” because of its high mortality rate, rapid human to human spread and lack of vaccines.  While mortality rates for both past influenza pandemics, and for the corona virus are somewhat statistically hazy, indications are that this corona virus is some 20 – 50 times more lethal than other recent influenza pandemics.  We could have lost over two million people if we did not curtail close-in activity, sheltered in place and socially distanced.  Even with this mitigation we are losing large numbers of people as the disease is at its apogee in some areas, but models like the ones being discussed are indicative of the tools we have to control this scourge.

What would really help our sheltering in place situation more is if the politicians and the mainstream media adopted a more positive attitude and stopped trying to tear down everything being done by the experts and the government to handle this thing.

Ray Gruszecki

April 8, 2020

Thank You, Chinese Communist Party

Thank You, Chinese Communist Party

Thank you, Chinese communist party, kith and kin of Bernie’s and Alexandria’s democratic socialists here in the U.S.  Thank you, UN’s World Health Organization, in the pocket of the Chinese communists.  Thank you for countless thousands of deaths and the loss of trillions of dollars of economic value that could have been avoided if the Chinese communists and the W.H.O. were responsible members of world society and told the truth at the outset of the corona virus outbreak, in November/December in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China.

Instead, the Chinese communists, abetted by Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the W.H.O., lied, covered up and suppressed the virus outbreak, allowed festivals in Wuhan, and travel from Wuhan and Hubei Province as if there was nothing wrong.  Even though President Trump was embroiled in the impeachment farce fueled by the leftists here in the U.S., he took action at the end of January to exclude travelers from China into the U.S.  Many Chinese went to Europe, particularly Northern Italy, and we know what happened there.  Trump shut down travel from Europe, UK and Canada a week or so later.  These travel restriction were met with cries of racist!, xenophobe!, and worse from our Trump-hating politicians and media.  Being Trump, he has never failed to brag about his early and decisive actions on closing the U.S. to foreign travelers from infected countries.

When I visited China in 2015, Xi Jinping had only been in power for a couple years, and had not yet consolidated long term dictatorial powers.  The Obama administration was treating the Chinese communists as respected members of the world community, hoping this would placate them, notwithstanding their “island forming” exercises in the South China Sea, and their emerging brutal treatment of dissenters, Christians and Muslim Uighurs in Western China.  The active independence movement in Hong Kong had not yet become a major, burning issue. Obama seemed quite content to symbolically bow to this regime, and allow them to pilfer our intellectual property and take advantage of us in trade.  To be noted, the previous Bush 43 administration was not much better in these respects. (No bowing, though).

Not only did the Chinese communists lie about the magnitude of the corona virus outbreak and the fact that it could spread human to human, they then deported all western journalists, fudged the numbers, and announced to the world how efficiently they handled the outbreak in China.  Only the count of cremation urns in Wuhan point to the Chinese government’s perfidy.

Then, after allowing the virus to emerge in Wuhan’s wet markets (or escape from a nearby bio-weapons laboratory), the cynical Chicoms embarked on a smear campaign trying to blame the U.S. military for the outbreak, and threatening to withhold vital pharmaceutical exports to the U.S.  They also undertook an assistance campaign, providing medical assistance and supplies to afflicted countries.  Presumably this assistance would have obligations similar to those under China’s “Belt and Road Initiative”.

Will the Chinese communists’ irresponsibility, perfidy and cynicism ever be brought to task?  Let us not hold our breaths.  But also, let us not forget China’s fomenting this plague on the world, and then cynically trying to gain international political advantage from it.  Let us also not forget the UN’s World Health Organization, whose head, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, hewed to the false Chinese party line, rather than providing truthful advice to the world about the virus.

As a minimum, we should bring manufacture of critical pharmaceuticals and other necessary items back to the U.S. or traditionally friendlier countries.  We should stop importing strategic items from China because they’re cheap.  American lives can be lost if we do not have reliable sources of supply of critical goods. 

Also, we should review our relationship with the UN’s World Health Organization, and particularly Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’ relationship with China.  The U.S. assessment for the W.H.O. for 2020-21 is $115.7 million.  China’s is $57.4 million.  Yet the W.H.O. seems to consistently parrot China’s party line concerning research, diseases and other health issues.  We should use our economic clout to ensure responsible leadership and responsible policies for W.H.O., and not the current incumbent who seems so firmly in China’s pocket, and who has proposed Robert Mugabe as a good will ambassador to W.H.O. in the past.

Ray Gruszecki

Sheltering in Place

April 7, 2020