This Changes Everything

Well, here we are, caricatures from the lyrics of that Paul McCartney song Band on the Run. Seemingly stuck inside forever, not being able to see anyone, or do much of anything, besides just survive. And why is that? Because of some evil virus that has taken the globe hostage and changed our perceptions of the world around us, the lives we led, and whatever our outlook for the future may have been. Yeah, this virus changed everything.

1.     China and the WHO. COVID 19, the Chinese Coronavirus, Wuhan virus, Kung-flu, or whatever name it’s going by nowadays, had its start in the City of Wuhan, the administrative seat of Hubei Province in the Peoples Republic of China. There is no denying this incontrovertible fact. When this train wreck first started, we were led to believe, by the Chinese government of course, that the virus had its origins at a wet market in Wuhan, where all manner of animals were sold and slaughtered to please the exotic palates of the locals. Giving credence to all of this was the World Health Organization (WHO), who assured us that there was nothing to concern ourselves with. The Chinese had it under control and there was no human to human transmission of the virus. That turned out to be the lie of the decade. Apparently, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director of the WHO, is not an MD, he’s a PHD, a doctor of letters. In fact, he’s the first non-MD to hold that position. Even more interesting is his background, click here to get the particulars. It’s pretty eye opening and explains why the WHO has comfortably been in China’s pocket for some time.

2.      Democrats and the media. It seems as though the Democrats and their touts in the legacy media have capitalized on another cudgel to beat the president over the head with. The travel ban from China was racist, xenophobic, and possibly even unconstitutional. We were assaulted non-stop with how this was an overreaction on the part of the administration. Medical experts on news shows told us that there was more to fear from the seasonal flu than this virus. There were politicians telling everyone to go out and enjoy themselves and take part in various local celebrations, from Mardi Gras in New Orleans, to the Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations in New York and San Francisco. What was there to worry about? Well, given the current landscape, an awful lot.

3.      Power grabs by states and municipalities. When the stay at home orders were issued by various states and municipalities, they were supposed to be tools to help stop the spread of the virus and “flatten the curve”. This, we were told, would keep new infections to a minimum, especially among the most vulnerable, where the pipeline usually meant, the hospital emergency room, intensive or critical care units, intubation (being put on a respirator), and eventually death. We were having the crap scared out of us, but were told that this was for our own good. Somewhere along the line, a few pols figured out that you can never have too much of a good thing (power) and decided to go overboard with their restrictions. Witness a Colorado Dad being arrested in an empty park while playing catch with his daughter. Witness a drive-in church service being held in the parish’s parking lot with attendees social distancing in their cars with the windows rolled up. Witness those same parishioners being ticketed by local police on orders from the mayor. Witness a state governor issuing orders to retailers as to what they can and cannot sell in their stores to their customers during the statewide lockdown. And then there are the more Orwellian extremes. Cities like New York and Los Angeles have instituted snitch hotlines where concerned citizens can report instances of someone not following stay at home or social distancing guidelines. Some municipalities throughout the country are now using donated drones manufactured by DJI, a Chinese drone manufacturer, to conduct surveillance on their citizenry. DJI has been accused by the U.S. Government of using the technology in these drones to spy on Americans. Birds of a feather, eh?

4.     Distance learning. When K-12 schools shut down and colleges and universities wouldn’t let students return to campus after Spring Break, something interesting happened. Classes/courses had to be held online by teachers and professors. Online meeting, videoconferencing and collaborative tools were suddenly having their day in the sun. There are going to be an awful lot of college and university students, now sidelined, who will start to consider whether going back to a physical campus is worth the effort. There are going to be economic and political ramifications of this decision. First, there will be the issue of reduced receipts for these schools since the online versions of these courses cost significantly less than being there physically. Then, there’s the fact that no need for room and board exists with a virtual classroom. Again, less income for the schools concerned. Then there is the political atmosphere, by far an important factor in this highly partisan environment. It is going to be irrevocably changed for the better. Institutions of higher learning over the last couple of decades have gone from being places where you were taught how to think, to places where you are now taught what to think. They have become factories of political indoctrination. With fewer young minds to influence, given the fact that the real world has now intruded on their progressive paradise, educators are going to have to come to the realization that in the marketplace of ideas, the monopoly they once had, is about to get smashed to bits. Lastly, there is the 800-pound gorilla in the room, college debt. In a 2019 interview, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos stated that student debt totaled more than 1.3 trillion dollars. Even more disturbing was the fact that only 24 percent of those who took out loans are repaying both the principal and interest on these obligations. Let that sink in. Only one in four borrowers are repaying their loans. As of this posting, all student loan payments have been placed on hold by the federal government. Once we get through this pandemic and its associated economic shocks, we’re going to have to address yet another slow-moving train wreck.

5.     Virtual meetings. As travel ground to a halt, businesses needed to be able to still conduct face to face meetings between workgroups or with their clients. Again, online meeting, videoconferencing and collaborative tools became the way to go. As this sort of thing gains even more traction, the question that most executives or business owners will be asking themselves, is why not continue this practice after the virus has come and gone? A good question to ask, if ever there was one, but this will take a toll on the travel and hospitality industries, since a lot of hotels, restaurants and various modes of transport rely heavily on the business traveler as a source of revenue during non-vacation/holiday months. Travel and the associated social distancing restrictions in the post-COVID world are going to look like nothing we’ve seen before.

6.     Hygiene habits. Wash your hands. We’ve all heard that admonishment as kids from grown ups, or even as grown ups now. Why? Because it helps to stop the spread of germs. Covering our mouths when we cough or sneeze were supposed to be common sense things to do, but we’ve all seen folks who just don’t seem able (or maybe even willing) to comply with such basic guidelines. How many of use ever bothered to use the hand sanitizer dispensers that were left in public areas as a courtesy before this pandemic? Now we can’t get enough of them. In fact, we tend to start looking around to see if there’s one nearby, even for the most trivial of circumstances.

7.     Supply chains & China Inc. We were told the American Century was already a thing of the past and that we were a great power in decline. China was on the ascendancy and there was nothing we could do about it. Their admittance to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and being given most Favored Nation (MFN) status, catapulted them into the rarified ranks of the economic juggernauts. Virtually everyone wanted to move manufacturing or some portion of their supply and logistics chains to China. Why not? Competent labor was dirt cheap and there was a chance to make inroads with the Chinese consumer, if one played their cards right. Problem is, the Chinese government had no intention of playing by the rules that the rest of the world abided by. Intellectual property rights, non existent as far as they’re concerned, unless it’s their intellectual property, or you want to “transfer” some of your technology to their companies. Foreign businesses trying to gain a toehold, only if they take on a Chinese partner who will eventually run them out of the country or out of business.

8.     Climate change. The Green New Deal got its start from an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report titled “Global Warming of 1.5 Deg C” dated October, 2018.  An excerpt from the policy makers summary stated “Human activities are estimated to have caused approximately 1.0°C of global warming above pre-industrial levels, with a likely range of 0.8°C to 1.2°C. Global warming is likely to reach 1.5°C between 2030 and 2052 if it continues to increase at the current rate. (high confidence)”. Most of the green warriors would like to see all fossil fuels banned completely and all of our energy needs come from renewable sources, in order to stem the warming trend we’re now encountering. Bjorn Lomborg of the Copenhagen Consensus Center recently pointed out something that should have been obvious to all concerned. As a result of the global lockdown, business and industry have been virtually shut down for almost two months. In that time, pollution levels worldwide have plummeted to a point that should have made even the most militant of climate change mafioso rejoice. Problem is, the global economy has been on life support as one of those unintended consequences of the lockdown. Adding fuel to the fire, everyone’s favorite Congresswoman, yep, AOC, recently sent out a tweet reveling in the crash of oil prices and exhorted workers to start a green energy revolution. She received so much blowback from it that she was forced to take it down. Kinda hard to start a movement when you’re stuck at home with no job and no way of knowing what lies ahead. Oops!

9.     Yankee ingenuity. There have been shortages of just about everything as everyone has gone into panic mode, buying out whatever they could get their hands on. Respirators, ventilators, hand sanitizer, medical supplies, toilet paper, you name it, it’s either in short supply or running out. Enter American enterprise and the unconquerable spirit that rises to challenges that seem like insurmountable barriers to others. Major industries and small businesses alike retooled to manufacture items such as protective masks, face shields, hand sanitizer, and ventilators to make up for the shortage in supply of these items, given the fact that the rest of the world has been clamoring for them as well. We went from being the “Arsenal of Democracy” during the second world war to becoming the world’s “Pandemic Protection Equipment Warehouse”. 

 

10. The economy. Our current economic shutdown to stop the spread of the virus has resulted in a self-inflicted recession to rival the one we spent the last decade recovering from. Businesses have been shuttered with some in jeopardy of never opening their doors again. In most business and economic cycles, this isn’t unusual since shaking out the weaker players adds to the overall strength and resiliency of the economy. Problem is that some industries work on very slim profit margins. Minor hiccups can be tolerated, but major shocks like what we’re going through right now can spell the end of everything. The Federal government stepped in to try and keep the economy from going into freefall with several bailout packages, such as the CARES Act, in the hopes of providing a safety net to small businesses, major corporations, and their workers. One of the unintended consequences of accepting money from the government is the fact that there are usually strings attached. For the airline industry, initially those proposals came in the form of Green New Deal style requirements for airlines to limit their carbon footprints, as well as restrictions on personnel actions (furloughs and layoffs), a moratorium on stock buybacks, and warrants for possible share purchases by the government. Thankfully cooler heads prevailed and only the latter three made it through the legislative process.

Time to tie all this together. The virus may have been naturally occurring, owing to the fact that it is prevalent in horseshoe bats. The very same bats that were the subjects of study at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (aka Kung flu U). U.S. intelligence sources are reporting with a high degree of confidence that a worker at the lab came into contact with bodily fluids or excrement from these creatures, became infected, and then went out into the community at large and started the spread of the virus (i.e. patient zero). We know that safety and security protocols at the lab were lacking because of a series of diplomatic cables sent back to the State Department from visitors to the lab raising those concerns two years ago. As the disease started wreaking havoc in the local area, one doctor was trying to draw attention to this flu like illness that had never been seen before. He was summarily picked up by the authorities and forced to issue a retraction. He later died of the illness he had been trying to warn others about. But he wasn’t the only one trying to raise the alarm or get to the bottom of things. Just about everyone who tried to do the right thing, be they reporters, doctors, or researchers, were never heard from again. Imagine that. Speaking of cover-ups, though we still don’t know the true death toll in China, there are a few potential indicators. Cell phone account cancellations among China’s “big three” providers hit the 21 million mark since this virus first hit China. Even accounting for a good chunk of these lines being canceled by itinerant workers who no longer had the ability to work during the lockdown and therefore had no need for another phone, there aren’t many ways to reconcile the staggering number of accounts that were closed down.

To China’s “credit”, the government did limit travel out of Wuhan to the rest of China, but failed to limit international travel out of the area. Why international travel? Simple, domestic restrictions wouldn’t have raised any eyebrows outside of the country’s borders, but limiting international travel most certainly would have brought about some level of scrutiny. The cover-up was in full swing. But knowing that no secret can be kept for very long, China needed an air of legitimacy about its efforts once the story broke. Enter the WHO and Dr. Tedros. In Dr. Tedros, the Chinese knew that they had a compliant stooge who would be more than willing to parrot their propaganda, which he did without fail. In fact, China went on a propaganda campaign in Europe and the U.S. to hopefully blunt any potential blowback (including claiming the virus was spread by U.S. service personnel visiting the region). The campaign was so successful that Northern Italy became ground zero for Europe and eventually the vector for the Northeastern United States outbreak. Governor Cuomo has the “Old Country” to thank for his state’s troubles.

Speaking of the states, it is they and the municipalities under their jurisdiction who are responsible for the initial emergency response when disasters strike. What we’ve seen instead, has been an overreliance on the Federal government to become the first responder of choice. But you continue to hear criticism after criticism being levied against the feds for various things in the run-up to and during this pandemic, some well-deserved, most not. Governor Cuomo, again comes to mind as the poster boy on how not to prepare for an emergency, although you’d never know it based on how the legacy media has been covering and analyzing his daily briefings.

In the runup to the main event (i.e. combating this virus), the administration was pilloried for actions that had been taken to protect this country. Remember, all of this, up until the virus hit us like a runaway train, was considered overreach and overreaction to something no worse than the seasonal flu. Worse yet, was the fact that the President was in the process of being impeached and no one was really paying attention to what was going on in China. So, if that was the case, how could the media, the Democrats, and the chattering class have been on top of this themselves? Answer of course is that they weren’t. The focus of their coverage was on impeachment almost 24/7. The best thing that the administration currently has going for it is the series of daily updates on efforts to combat this virus. They have become must-see TV for the viewing public, much to the consternation of the president’s detractors. That’s a good thing. Americans need to be able to judge for themselves what’s been happening, the decisions being made in their name and for their benefit.

Speaking of benefit, there needs to be a discussion on how China has been able to benefit from this pandemic. While the rest of the world had been lulled into a state of blissful ignorance as this virus was raging through China, the government went on a buying spree of protective gear (PPE) and ventilators. They tried to corner the market primarily for the use of their own populace, but secondarily to be able to dictate prices to anyone looking to obtain PPE and ventilators once this virus went worldwide. And when it wasn’t enough to corner the market on vitally needed supplies, they knowingly chose to export defective PPE and uncertified or counterfeit test kits to the rest of us. Even more sinister, China has gone on a global buying spree of tech and biotech companies who now find themselves in distress due to the shutdown. They’re on sale at bargain basement prices. Author Peter Schweizer coined the term “smash and grab” to describe the actions undertaken by a host of bad actors in his book Secret Empires. China should also be added to that list. What they hadn’t counted on (much to their chagrin) was good ole American ingenuity. As stated earlier, although it took us some time to play catch-up, we were able to adapt, improvise, and overcome the deficit/disadvantage we had been placed in at the start of this pandemic.

Trade relationships are now being revisited in the aftermath of all that has occurred. The crash in oil prices had its origins in the Russian effort to intentionally collapse the U.S. fracking industry by opening the spigot to flood the market with cheap oil. Having cautioned the Russians about such a risky venture and the need to cut-back production to keep prices stable, the Saudis eventually decided to fight fire with fire. What happened next was predictable, as oil prices plummeted to lows that hadn’t been seen in decades. Smaller players were definitely put at a disadvantage and many wound up closing up shop (with more to surely follow). It wasn’t until the U.S. helped broker a deal between the Russians and the Saudis that the price war had finally come to an end.  There was only one problem, the damage had already been done. Oil prices continued to tumble since there was no demand due to the global shutdown. The federal government is currently considering an assistance package for the oil industry until prices head north to a more sustainable level. Given the fallout from the Asian swine flu, China has become dependent on American pork production. In fact, China is now the largest market for U.S. pork products, but that market has now been put in jeopardy since two of the biggest pork producers, Tyson and Smithfield Foods, have shuttered some of their larger plants to deal with the virus in their workforce. Last but not least, is Phase One of the trade deal with China. One of the codicils in the agreement was that natural disasters were a get out of jail free card when it came to adherence to the deal. This pandemic, at least according to the Chinese, was a natural occurrence. There was nothing that could have been done to stop its spread, therefore the argument can and should be made that the administration should give them leeway on following through with Phase One of the deal. Under normal circumstances, this would have some merit, but the circumstances were far from normal, as we’ve come to find out. China’s got some ‘splainin to do on this one, not just to us, but to the entire planet. I don’t see this becoming the Chinese century any time soon in light of this clusterf#*k.

Reopening the economy and getting America back to work, while restricting the spread of the virus, should be priority one. There’s only so much money to go around and we can’t print or borrow our way out of this. We were already twenty-three TRILLION dollars in the hole before the start of this pandemic and the sums of money involved in these relief packages are easily going to add another three trillion more to the debit column.  Confidence, more than anything is what will get this ball rolling again. The question of course, is how do you instill that sense of confidence into the general public? The current thinking is that more widespread testing on a national level will be necessary to identify those infected, those who may have developed antibodies to keep the virus at bay, and those who are virus-free. Until that happens, there really is no way to ensure a safe return to work or school, or so we’ve been led to believe. Stanford University recently conducted a study on how many people in the general populace had actually contracted the virus (USC conducted a similar study). The samplings that they took, after extrapolation, showed that the projected number of infected actually put the death rate closer to one in one thousand (that would be a more manageable figure to use as a gauge on how to reopen the economy). There has been plenty of pushback on these studies from those in the test everyone camp, but sampling has been a quality control tool used in industrial and manufacturing processes for several decades now, so it’s not some sort of one off or risky and untried method (i.e. guesstidigitation).

Because we can’t trust information coming from China or the WHO, dealing with this virus is like taking a step into the great unknown. As more information is made available to researchers and medical experts, there may come a need to pivot from a widely held belief or orthodoxy to one that had only months or weeks before been on the fringes, or not even on the radar at all. Agility, adaptability, and flexibility will become the new buzzwords going forward, because, as stated earlier, this virus changed everything.