the big gamble?

Here we go: THE BIG GAMBLE?

[b]"President Trump is weighing calls from some Republican lawmakers and White House advisers to scale back steps to contain the coronavirus despite the advice of federal health officials as a growing number of conservatives argue that the impact on the economy has become too severe, according to several people with knowledge of the internal deliberations.

"Loosening restrictions on social distancing would override the internal warnings of senior U.S. health officials, including Anthony S. Fauci, who have said that the United States has not yet felt the worst of the pandemic.

“WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF,” Trump said in a tweet late Sunday. “AT THE END OF THE 15 DAY PERIOD, WE WILL MAKE A DECISION AS TO WHICH WAY WE WANT TO GO!”

“The 15-day period is set to end on March 30.”[/b] WP March 23, 2020

So, in a week, which way will we go here in America? And this is not just an economic question of course. If Trump gambles on scaling back “social distancing”, and, as a result, the infections explode, lots and lots and lots of people could die.

And the economic nosedive might be that much worse.

Or, sure, he could “reboot” the economy, new infections don’t go through the roof, the economy becomes bullish again and the gamble pays off.

Seven days and counting?

From the NYT:

[b]"But there could be consequences to ending the measures too quickly. The recent rise of cases in Hong Kong, after there had been an easing of the spread of the virus, is something of an object lesson about how ending strict measures too soon can have dangerous consequences.

"In a tweet on Monday morning, Thomas Bossert, the former homeland security adviser who for weeks has been vocal about the need for the U.S. government to take stricter measures, said, “Sadly, the numbers now suggest the U.S. is poised to take the lead in #coronavirus cases. It’s reasonable to plan for the US to top the list of countries with the most cases in approximately 1 week. This does NOT make social intervention futile. It makes it imperative!”[/b]

Yes, and if You could use other viral infections as a guide, then the consideration of new waves should play into the gamble.

New waves could come in mutations, partly reversing any progress, in any number of new combinations.

In addition , the HIV Virus may be used , in accessing new viral immunities, and this pandemic may go airborne, ( maybe increasing the time it .can stay virulent )-

The earliest parallel of socio-economic gamble is, indeed, weighing the economic vs. health gradients, and that appears to be coming toward a critical point in time.

A baseline strengthened immunity before the mutation, would strengthen the prioritization of the health type variants, because the weakened immune system within general populations, may reduce any short term economic gains that long term health management is more likely to afford.

May - be. The month of May, be that ultimate fulcrum upon which the approaching decision could hang. ( not intended as a pun)

David L. Katz in the NYT

nytimes.com/2020/03/20/opin … ncing.html

His basic argument seems to be that…

[b]'If a germ can’t secure its hold on your body, your body no longer serves as a vector to send it forward to the next potential host. This is true even if that next person is not yet immune. When enough of us represent such “dead ends” for viral transmission, spread through the population is blunted, and eventually terminated. This is called herd immunity.

What we know so far about the coronavirus makes it a unique case for the potential application of a “herd immunity” approach, a strategy viewed as a desirable side effect in the Netherlands, and briefly considered in the United Kingdom.'[/b]

On the other hand, remember when British Prime Minister Boris Johnson [the libertarian] was talking about letting the virus run its course in Britain, allowing the population to build up a natural immunity to it…

nytimes.com/2020/03/13/worl … hnson.html

Now listen to him as he shuts the country down.

'The data from South Korea, where tracking the coronavirus has been by far the best to date, indicate that as much as 99 percent of active cases in the general population are “mild” and do not require specific medical treatment. The small percentage of cases that do require such services are highly concentrated among those age 60 and older, and further so the older people are. Other things being equal, those over age 70 appear at three times the mortality risk as those age 60 to 69, and those over age 80 at nearly twice the mortality risk of those age 70 to 79.

So, the idea is go from a “horizontal” response to the pandemic by shutting everything down, to a more “vertical” approach where the emphasis is placed on protecting that 1% of the population most at risk, without upending the lives of the 99% who are not really at risk for any serious consequences even if they do get sick.

Or something like that.

Of course thinking something like this up in your head is not the same as coming up with actual social, political and economic policies to implement it “in reality”.

The law of unintended consequences often runs rampant “in reality”. Not to mention Murphy’s Law.

Why think it up in your head when all that is across the board, is a baseline, below which it’s more probable an occurrence that is more attuned to a kind of immunity force field.

The opportunists are seeking a baseline ( like people begin a search for an investment strategy, that becomes less of an invested gamble , more it approaches a baseline immunity , (where some with more to loose, relatively, can qualify their illness- : more. in terms of metaphor, that being closely aligned by and into that line: the base )
In today’s market crash, for instance, more investors are thinking in terms of an 18,000 Dow baseline. They try to formulate that with expressions like “it can’t t go much lower” Then social feeling for that bottom, does merge with a feeling corresponding to the corona virus’ length of invasion.

The base as a herd, knows and feels this only if, the 1% collided in sympathy with them, assures their dependency and survival

The micro-economics has dropped to the molecular level, and in most cases, it is cybernetically managed with automated buys and sells.

It brings to mind the bio-economic Freudian notion, that has really been picked up by only a few thinkers, most dismissive for a substantial basis for a topical economic theory.

I don’t know, but maybe Trump is right in assaulting that NBC reporter, who put American insecurity on the line, whereas his reluctance to effect presidential power in full force, is mirrored by the Congressional conflict over the now bulging two trillion dollar package to support the social -corporate baseline.

Is this actually what is at stake if Trump’s gamble doesn’t play out as he now sees it all unfolding “in his head”?

[b]'As President Trump endorsed putting an end to social distancing “very soon" for the sake of the economy, one expert emphasized the continued need for social distancing, among other dramatic measures, to curtail the spread of the virus.

In a long Twitter thread, Tom Inglesby, the director of the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said the United States is nowhere where it needs to most effectively combat coronavirus.

“Anyone advising the end of social distancing now, needs to fully understand what the country will look like if we do that,” he said. “Covid would spread widely, rapidly, terribly, could kill potentially millions in the year ahead with huge social and economic impact across the country."'[/b] 3/23/20 WP

Remember, the folks who are now arguing to roll the dice by scaling back on “social distancing” and sending Americans back to work, were the same ones [on Fox News and elsewhere] who, at the beginning of all this, were arguing the whole thing was just fake news, a scam generated by the liberal mainstream media to take down the president.

Forget testing, forget taking the threat seriously, forget mobilizing a national response to a worldwide pandemic.

They can’t/won’t/don’t even admit they were wrong about that and now they want us to trust them that they are right about this.

And, sure, they may well be. And that’s what makes the stakes here particularly crucial. This isn’t like the “global warning” conflagration where the “winners” can’t be named until 2050 or the end of the century. This is a bet where we might know the winners and the losers just weeks from now.

wsj.com/articles/coronaviru … 1584659306

“yet these claims are fantasy. here’s the lesson of the virus so far: relying solely on government bureaucracy is insane. to the extent america is weathering this moment, it is in enormous part thanks to the strength, ingenuity and flexibility of our thriving, competitive capitalist players.”

you need only ax yourself this: is it either illogical or inconceivable to imagine a country (or even a world) that could sustain itself and its functionality while at the same greatly reducing its active economic productivity. the same question in different words; could a country implement social distancing, sheltering in place, or even martial law - as measures to prevent the spread of the virus - and still function? absolutely. but only if things had been done differently for decades prior to the outbreak of the pandemic. it is quite conceivable that governments, had they the respective control of economy and the markets, been able to direct productive efforts toward developing both the medical technology as well as commodity surplus and stockpiling necessary to accommodate a situation like this and be sufficiently prepared for it in advance.

now the numbnutts who wrote this article not only lacks any knowledge of this, but even defends the very system that is responsible for this lack of preparedness as the thing that will come to our rescue.

but here’s how what he’s saying appears to make sense. because the government, in its current crony/nanny state to serve the interests of big capitalism, is incompetent, he’s right to say that it can’t help us and might as well botch the whole thing if it tried. but this is a different structure of government than the kind that would exist in a bonafide socialist system… so his example is a red herring… but a very effective one. readers, who have been brainwashed by conservatism for centuries to believe that government is ‘evil’, buy into this uninformed bullshit propaganda… and remain all the more complacent to the foibles of the free market and the parasites that control it.

again, ax yourself if it is possible to be prepared for a pandemic like this had things been done differently.

capitalism, being motivated only to work for immediate profit, is not inclined to produce things for circumstances that might become a reality in the future… because what might be valuable later on isn’t what’s valuable right now. that, in a nut shell, is the fundamental problem with capitalism at this very moment.

now watch how, because the system has such a stranglehold on economy, the very capitalism that is responsible for not being able to address this crisis effectively, will use the crisis to empower itself yet again. instead of government being able to seize control of the private sectors and demand mass production and distribution of what is needed, it will bail out the big companies (give them more money!?) so that they don’t go bankrupt during a shelter in place scenario. it’s a stalemate; so long as private companies employ the people, they have to be protected so that productivity is guaranteed… and the government continues to feed the very thing responsible for the lack of the necessary productivity to prepare for a crisis like this. if that ain’t the dumbest thing i’ve ever heard, i don’t know what is.

the fact is, these cockroaches will tell you anything to keep you from noticing what a complete joke capitalism is when it is called to work in favor of working, middle class people. even as we speak there are lobbyists and advisers whispering in the orange man’s ear: don’t shut businesses down, man. send everybody back to work so the economic wheels keep turning. so what if a few million die. it’s got to happen. how else can we sustain ourselves?

and the truth is, there is no other way, because the mess that capitalism has gotten us in cannot be corrected as fast as it would need to be to prevent the travesty that must happen to keep everything going.

i dunno. couple things might come out of this. either this will prove to be the nail in capitalism’s coffin… or… the minds of the middle-class are already so entrenched by conservative ideological brainwashing that they might actually believe that if it weren’t for capitalism, we’d not have been able to get through this disaster.

i’m a skeptic, so i put my money on the latter.

oh wait my bad. it was a chick who wrote the article, not a dude. kimberly is her name.

oh kimberly. kimberly kimberly kimberly. what have they done to you.

vocaroo.com/bXMNh059lA5

voca.ro/fMgocDbHuRd

The thing appears to be, that Capitalism’s right to exist is far more a weighty consideration then the constitutional right spelled out in the Bill of Rights, for it is becoming obvious that the mode of production. and distribution has basically adjuncted the privilege for profit taking.
This particular has become so sacred, that among those who interpret the Constitution this way, the Bill of Rights , the right to Life is inconceivable without it.

Democracy and Capitalism have become inseparable elements within the whole organizatipnal basis of the way we, the people conduct and think about the way we live and think, and the profit motive is the primal element which give the fuel to this machinery.

Even Jesus’warning, in a supposedly Christian nation, of " what profit a man…only to loose his everlasting soul" come to mind. The Constitution. was written by Christan men, …constitutionally begging for …a social organization under God, .with liberty and justice for all, but they didn’t bargain for a state of affairs which made the procurement of morally obtained profit taking am ethical preordinate.

So that it what is at stake here, and in November . when citizens go to the polls to decide, they will not be capable to choose between two opposite ideologies : socialism vs capitalism, because the polotocal profit has already been factored in, just as elements of marketability always precede an included form of what is in it -‘for me’, - rather them for someone for whom ones-present the mode of relative ( relational) value.

That is the hidden hypothesis that is wrecking a moral conflict below the surface of how ethical considerations are disposed of.

This great unrecognized divide, dispossessed of moral imperatives, help create the allusions which never become more then illusionary. That is why, there have been noted the missing mandate that Trump is trying to govern with, and that is why authority’s blind purpose has replaced common sense.

.

On the other hand, this brings to mind “the gamble” made by another president…one that liberals hold in contempt just behind Trump: Dubya

This gamble: npr.org/templates/story/sto … =101795899

The one that “paid off”.

Of course that doesn’t upend the fact that there were no WMD, that the war was ill-thought out and conducted; that it was pursued by a son out to one-up his daddy in the service of the military industrial/oil complex. The war economy. And, of course, this part: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualtie … e_Iraq_War

But what counts here [as always] are the political narratives able to be spun by both sides.

Only this time the gamble isn’t about over there, but right here. And, if the gamble fails, the “civilian casualties” will as well be right here.

Maybe even some of us.

Sorry, double print.

hahahah look at this one: google.com/amp/s/www.washin … utType=amp

Now the cocksucker is squirming around to find excuses for the lack of preparedness and slow response time. He wants to blame Obama… but look at the compound nature of the lie. First, he’ll say it was the FDA’s regulation interference that caused companies the slow their production.

Okay but wait. We WANT the FDA to regulate these companies so we aren’t sold some bogus bullshit, right? No but hold on. The bill was never passed ANY FUCKIN WAY, so even his lie is a lie.

My gawd. This man… this thing that has crawled out of the sewer and made his way into the white house. I’ll tell you what. If you’re a trumpster, don’t even talk to me man. I’ll reach through your computer screen and punch you right in the goddamn nose. Think I’m playin y’ont to.

I agree to partially take a slight diversion:

I think the gamble here was an extension of ’ yeah, there may not be WMD, but we cannot be sure, at least that impression may not even come up, but even if it does( as it did) - the strategic gains can justify the means.
That was the underlying assumption, that put a military posture into a higher situation.

As far as gambles go, the hug her the risk, the greater the payoff.
Having lost pretty badly in South east Asia, the need for a middle eastern stand, to stop the dominos falling from west to east, would have, could have reified a strong global underbelly, somewhat similar to Hitler’s preoccupation with the Balkan underbelly.

Was Iraq, in retrospect a win or loose for strategic interest? Will we ever know?

Sorry Promethean, didn’t mean to displace You.

You ain’t fixin to displace me, muthafucka.

Are you a trumpster? Say it. Say it muthafucka I dare you. I triple dog dare you.

I would if i could, but I can’t even if.
One thing though, he is a failed actor, and will never get an Emmy or Oscar, or even. Noble ss obliss Prize, and that ain’t so good for an apprentice.

Like the guy who killed old Abe, out’o
spite him being a total. actin’ failure della art’e and not become like serial.

One time wonder, no sequals that’s it.
Unless he be manifest destiny. Like some other dangerous heavyweights .

Some say, though, he IS kinda cute.

I guess the great rebound of the DOW today reflects the major agreement with Trump, at par with the pronounced dereliction for political over Freudian economy.

That is now, a reflection of OUR State if the Union.

nytimes.com/interactive/202 … e=Homepage

Above is an assessment of just how big Trump’s gamble might be. Yet who really knows what the gap might be between a wild ass and an educated guess. And between a less educated and a more educated guess.

And that’s before “the politics” of it all kicks in.