Starting to Think About Takeaways

With the exception of a few large hotspots around the country (NYC region, Detroit, New Orleans, Chicago) it's starting to look like we are turning the corner on the coronavirus plague. Oregon has continued to be relatively lightly impacted. The latest figures show 1,322 confirmed cases with a death rate of only 9 per million population. To give this number some perspective, Oregon had 509 deaths/100,000 population for auto accidents(2017), 160.4/100,000 for cancer (2015) and 134/100,000 for heart disease (2017). Dr. Bud Pierce has been posting a weekly update on how things are going in Oregon with the coronavirus and his most recent report is quite positive. https://youtu.be/fX7_kmmap3w

Taking all this into consideration, it's time to begin thinking about some takeaways:

• The Chinese statistics on coronavirus are baloney. As of this morning, the U.S. is reporting 475,749 confirmed cases. China says theirs hit 82,941and then stopped cold. China has a population 4 times that of the United States. Shanghai's public gathering places shut down completely this week, as did a city in northwestern China. I call bulls*&@#! Not possible. 
• The Chinese are nobody's friend.  From sitting on early reports of how contagious this virus is, to hoarding medical supplies, to threatening to cutoff medical supplies if the U.S. and others didn't sing the Chinese tune, these guys are not anyone's friend. They did the same to the Italians, actually even worse because they sold the Italians back medical supplies that they Italians had donated to China before Italy was hit. China is not delivering ventilators they contracted for to Brazil and the ones sold to England are breaking down frequently. The world's nations consequently need to follow through and make major adjustments in dealing with this government. 
• Governments stockpiling emergency items.  It's not just the Feds. Government down through at least the state level have a critical responsibility to maintain these stocks. Just do it!
• National plan to address a pandemic. My father-in-law worked for Westinghouse at the start of WW II. He told the story of how, on the day after Pearl Harbor, military officers walked through the plant's doors with plans to convert the factory to wartime production of entirely new items. The medical sector has responded well, by and large, in this current crisis, but WWII speed and comprehensiveness is necessary to implement a master plan if and when this situation recurs. 
• The U.S. needs to onshore manufacturing. We got caught with a huge percentage of our medical supplies from medicines to protective gear to equipment being made in China. They did threaten to cutoff our supply lines while we were in crisis and it is simply stupid beyond belief if we don't onshore this sector of manufacturing. We also need a comprehensive study of all manufacturing sectors to determine what is in the national interest to bring home. 
• Globalism is on life support.  And should be. The national interest trumps cheap prices when it comes to key items. There is no duty to make a few mega corporations/tycoons richer by letting them rely on cheap or even slave Chinese labor. We may have to pay a little more for key products made in this country, but when crunch time comes, it will have been a small price to pay.
• Urban density isn't such a good thing. There appears to be a high correlation between high urban density and high incidence of the disease, both here and in Europe. The more spread out we are, the resistant we are to a pandemic. We need to totally rethink land use planning from this new perspective. 

There are undoubtedly many more takeways that will be coming from this situation. It is critical, however, that we not only discuss and vet them, but that we make them. Quickly.

A Note of Hope

There is a video embedded in this Daily Wire article done by a pulmonologist at one of NYC's leading hospitals. He is seeing almost 100% Covid-19 cases during New York's meltdown, yet he brings a note of hope as to how avoid the virus, dealing with someone in your family who is sick, and the general treatment picture. It's long, but well worth watching. 


https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-this-video-from-a-doctor-on-the-frontline-of-the-coronavirus-will-make-you-feel-a-whole-lot-better

A Modest Proposal

The Democrats have now stalled a national economic relief bill twice today. Unbelievable! We have people and businesses just hanging on over the coronavirus crisis and they tank it because they want pork - solar power handouts, union goodies, abortion money. Grrrr...

Fine. Put the Senators who are self-quarantining  in hazmat suits with self-contained oxygen, fly them to DC in private jets, and have them come to the Senate so attired and vote. The Dems deserve to hang on this one. So push the lever and let them drop. 

A Post Coronavirus Hope

The end of the coronavirus crisis is not yet in sight, but there are some hopeful signs. New quick turnaround tests are being deployed in large scale trials, hydroxychloroquine is showing great early promise as a cure, and vaccines are 10 months to a year out. This being the case, it is not too early to begin learning lessons that we will carry with us as we enter the post-virus era. The one that I want to focus on here is summarized in two words: Slow Down!


We have been a "Go-Go" society pretty much across the board for a long while - too much work, kids over-scheduled with sports, extracurricular classes, even vacations so tightly scheduled in order to "see everything" that we come home and are exhausted. This has led to burnout at all levels, even kids. 

One of the things that I have been starting to hear is that the enforced slower pace that most of us are now living is actually kind of nice in allowing us to enjoy the luxury of time. As a lawyer, I was once told by an older hand to be sure to balance my life between career and family. After all he said, no lawyer's last words were, "Gee, I wish I had more billable hours!" Sage advice and I hope one of the points of recalibration in all of our lives that we act as we move into better times. 

Corporate Responsibility - Exhibit A

I posted a blog piece about corporate responsibility, or rather the lack thereof, in terms of gutting American industry in favor of cheap goods made in China by low wage or even slave labor. OregonLive posted an article just this morning with an excellent contemporary illustration of my point. 

American hospitals face a shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) such as masks, gowns, booties, surgical caps, etc. Today's article explains that this is because about 97% of PPE items were made at one factory at a city in China. As China's own coronavirus crisis became more severe, the Chinese government diverted production internally. Shocker! Totally unforeseeable I'm sure - not. This illustrates the huge difference between the "national interest" and a narrow "corporate interest." 

The U.S. is 20+ years behind in doing a careful analysis of what manufacturing is of critical national interest to this country and then taking steps to insure that this manufacturing is not off-shored, especially to China. When we need something NOW, we cannot wait and we especially cannot allow ourselves to be held hostage by a potential enemy. For an excellent analysis of this whole situation, I recommend Stealth War by Brig. Gen. (ret.) Robert Spalding, who did in-depth research in this area for the National Security Council and China expert for the Joint Chiefs at the Pentagon. 

 https://www.oregonlive.com/coronavirus/2020/03/medical-supply-imports-to-us-plummet-as-demand-soars-amid-coronavirus-pandemic.html

Living Through the Current Crisis

CBN had a good post about what C.S. Lewis and Martin Luther would have to say about our current coronavirus situation. Both are astute and applicable, but as a Lewis aficionado, let me quote the trenchant parts of his comments which, although about living in the era of the atomic bomb, are equally applicable today:

In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors—anesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.

This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.

Amen. Bad stuff has happened before and it will happen again. The bottom line is none of us get out of here alive, so it's best to live each day well, secure in the knowledge that if the worst should come, God doesn't leave us or abandon us but instead ushers into a life greater than we can ask or imagine. Be sensible, but fear not. And don't hog the TP. 

https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/cwn/2020/march/what-c-s-lewis-martin-luther-would-say-about-our-coronavirus-panic

Corporate Responsibility

Lest you misconstrue, I am not cultivating a "Bern for Bernie," but what responsibility, if any, does have a corporation have beyond it shareholders? This is not as theoretical question as it might seem at first blush. Specifically, the C-virus pandemic has brought to light the disturbing fact that 97% of antibiotics used in the U.S. are produced in China, as is 80+% of our medical equipment. How in the world did this happen? 

It happened because large U.S. corporations focused solely on maximizing profits, totally disregarding such other considerations as national security, the effect on lives in this country if meds were cut off by a cranky Chinese Communist government, and a host of other important policy considerations. Should greed have ruled the day to the exclusion of everything else? A very interesting article published recent in Aviation Week says "no."

Capitalism has always been about "risk/reward" and author Kevin Michaels makes clear that he agrees with that. He traces the whole narrow focus solely on profits to Jack Welch at GE in the early 1980s. Welch spun off disciples into other industries like Harry Stonecipher who went to Boeing. When asked if the only thing he was interested in was making money, he replied, "You're right, I am." We all now know how that worked out at Boeing, where a culture of bean counters, very unlike the previous engineering culture, produced that magnificent machine, the 737 Max. 

The end result of the Welch approach becoming generally accepted throughout U.S. business was the hollowing out of American manufacturing, even in industries critical to our national interest and lives. Quarterly revenues became God as the focus was bumping up stock values. Michaels then makes the point that many executives now receive the lion's share of their compensation via stock options and concentrate on those quarterly figures with a laser-like focus. No conflict of interest there. 

There are some business contrarians out there and a few are mentioned. The bigger point he makes, though, is to ask whether this approach to corporate responsibility is really even in the best interests of the shareholders or is it just for a chosen few executives and some mega-rich players? It is definitely not in the national interest of this country and its citizens as a whole and it has to change. 

https://aviationweek.com/aerospace/manufacturing-supply-chain/opinion-rethinking-shareholders-first