[ExI] Some virus statistics

Wed Jul 15 13:26:31 UTC 2020

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of John Clark via extropy-chat
Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2020 5:03 AM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Cc: John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [ExI] Some virus statistics

On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 4:32 PM spike jones via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> > wrote:

>>…Do you really believe every epidemiologist in the world is lying and every country except the USA is a dictatorship just like North Korea?

> We don’t know what the covid rate is in any communist country. 

That doesn't answer my question. Do you claim we don't know the Covid-19 rate in ANY country…

That’s right.  In any country which controls information, their rate is whatever it says it is.  China started right out with a world-killing lie.  We don’t trust them.  In the USA, we incentivize our hospitals to over-report.  We still do that.  Over time more and more people catch covid, get sick, recover, go on with their lives, something unrelated happens, they still have the anitbodies, the hospitals get to report that as a covid death, they get paid.  Over time, more and more people stay away from their doctors and hospitals for good reason, this causes something else to go wrong, they die, we don’t know how to count that.

>… and EVERY epidemiologist in the world is lying…

They must use the same data we do.

>…and EVERY scientific journal article about the virus is wrong, and there is NO accurate data about the virus at all?

We don’t know how accurate the data is.  Do you?  How?  

>…Do you think the virus is even real or is it all just a gigantic worldwide hoax designed to make the USA look bad?

John, the virus doesn’t make the USA look bad.  It makes China look bad.  You try to make the USA look bad.  Two different things.  For handling of the virus, the USA looks like other comparable countries.  The comparable ones are those with a similar level of international travel and a similar infrastructure.  

>…Or do you think that maybe just maybe your worldview needs some minor revisions? Maybe just maybe the USA is not always the best at everything and in this emergency it has acted with massive breathtaking incompetence…

Not all of them.  Wyoming and Hawaii have done a great job.  New York and New Jersey were epic fails.  

>   But the government cannot manufacture wealth.  It can manufacture money.  Two different things.

>…Your timing is dreadful! 

Timing is irrelevant.  The government has never been able to manufacture wealth.  John you should talk to someone who traveled in South America during a time when their governments failed and resorted to manufacturing money.  The merchants would remove the price tags, and trade in American currency because they knew what it was worth.  They didn’t know what the prices were in their own national currency because they hadn’t heard what their government was claiming it was worth that day.

Timing has nothing to do with it.  We already know what happens when governments manufacture money without backing: we can’t manufacture wheelbarrows fast enough.

The biggest financial crises will be at the state level.  States have not the option of printing money.  They can borrow of course, just as the Federal government does, and they will, but investors might not line up to buy those bonds.  Counties, cities and school districts are facing budget shortfalls too.  They have even fewer options, but our city council voted last week to put a quarter cent sales tax on the November ballot, while announcing a temporary hold on some infrastructure.

One way or another, government will need to be cut deeply at every level.  There is no magic act to make up the deficit.

spike

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