Why Trump Is Right to Re-Open the Economy

[Jay McKinsey + 1,490]

2 hours ago, 0R0 said:

I was always told of Dem sabotage of the presidential appointments, they seemed quite happy with each fallen candidate. Not that Republicans like them all. I only viewed the stats rather than looking at the process. ~75% rejection. On that record I think any president will not rush to fill positions. Not the kind of thing I get into in detail. I will say that the Trump administration has large swaths of the regulatory agencies in its cross-hairs to shut down or diminish in scope and authority. That is part of the problem in staffing them 

I don't care about the grammar etc. so long as I understand what you are saying. And I don't play the semantics when they are not the issue. So no criticism came from me. 

Can you provide a link to the stats that show 75% rejection? I can't find them. 

[0R0 + 6,251]

5 minutes ago, Jay McKinsey said:

Can you provide a link to the stats that show 75% rejection? I can't find them. 

Didn't bookmark it. Machinations in the Senate don't really get my attention most of the time. 

[Dmitry Bedin + 25]

4 hours ago, Tomasz said:

 

For today you have over 522,000 cases with only 2,600,000 tests performed.

So  looking at the fact that the US still has not done too many tests and they record 20-30 thousand new infections a day opening the economy in the interest of large corporations does not seem to me the best idea

I am not a supporter of the Koranovirus hysteria but the fact is that this is by far the worst situation in the world and the US has failed for a long time trying to develop its own Koranovirus test.

In the clash with the coronavirus, the Chinese have done better so far.

But wait, doesnt the mighty and so great country in the world has “best medical ppl”, best prepeared, best medical system in the Universe failed to test best ppl? Lmao

Edited April 11, 2020 by Dmitry Bedin

[Jay McKinsey + 1,490]

3 hours ago, Ward Smith said:

I'm aware of the words in the source and even the political slant of said source (not conservative). Irregardless, the words from your quote I've quoted tell the whole story. In the good Ole boys club that is the Senate, there are any number of games being played. 

Go to my subsequent post and review the graphs. An appointment need not go to full on filibuster to be delayed into oblivion. Multiple appointees have simply given up, which was part and parcel of the Democratic Party strategy. They've been at war with the President since he won the election. Anyone with an IQ over room temperature can see that. 

https://community.oilprice.com/topic/11702-why-trump-is-right-to-re-open-the-economy/?page=20#comment-102465

 

I agree that it is an old boys club and games are played and that the Dem's are doing what they can to defeat nominations but at the end of the day the Republicans hold all the cards and control all the rules. You can't blame Dem's for living by Republican controlled rules, Republicans are complicit. The only significant measure the Dem's have had for delaying is using the full 30 hours of after cloture discussion. But over a year ago that 30 hours was changed to just 2 hours for everything but circuit court, SCOTUS and cabinet level execs! Amusingly it appears that exec confirmations actually slowed down a bit after that. You need to realize that there are two nomination tracks, judicial and executive. As I said before, Trump and McConnell have spent time and effort on judicial nominations instead of exec nominations. Accordingly Trump has the highest number of judicial confirmations for any President in recent history. 

In regard to the document you linked: Very importantly it only tracks executive appointments.

Trump nominations 550. Average nominations 675.

Trump confirmations 350. Average confirmations 600.

So Trump confirmations are actually only 125 behind average. It is unclear if nominations that are withdrawn are included in number of nominations but it would seem logical that they are.

The best source I can find for tracking withdrawls and rejections is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Donald_Trump_nominees_who_have_withdrawn

62 exec withdrawls by my count, however 5 were immediately renominated and confirmed for other positions of similar rank so the real number of withdrawls is 57.

2 exec rejections

14 judicial withdrawls, no rejections

Subtracting out the withdrawls and rejections leaves Trump just 66 confirmations behind average.

Rejections could only be caused by Republicans. So the question then is how many withdrew because of Democratic delay in process? Well note on that list the number of withdrawls that occurred in less than two months.  Now let's take a look at some of the longer periods:

Sam Clovis: The nomination attracted attention because this post is traditionally filled by a scientist, and Clovis has no science background.^[21] A statute requires that nominee for the position be chosen from among "distinguished scientists with specialized training or significant experience in agricultural research, education, and economics."^[21]

^{Todd Ricketts:} On April 19, 2017, Ricketts withdrew his nomination from consideration citing the inability to divest his financial holdings to the satisfaction of the Office of Government Ethics.^[3]

Barry Meyers: If confirmed, Myers will be the second NOAA administrator without a science degree, and the first since Richard A. Frank left office in 1981.His nomination was returned to President Trump by the Senate on January 3, 2018,^[18] resubmitted on January 8, 2018, returned on January 3, 2019,^[19] and resubmitt\ed on January 16, 2019. The nomination was withdrawn by President Trump on December 2, 2019.^[20]  Only Republicans can return a nomination, it is an informal rejection.

Dean Winslow said "I'd also like to ... just say how insane it is that in the United States of America a civilian can go out and buy a semi-automatic weapon like an AR-15." After his nomination was put on indefinite hold, Winslow wrote an editorial in the Washington Post titled "I spoke my mind on guns. Then my Senate confirmation was put on hold" In the editorial, he wrote: "I have seen what [assault weapons like the AR-15] do to human beings. The injuries are devastating."[4] Republican hold

Elaine McCusker then sent emails to the OMB expressing concern that by witholding funds from the Ukraine, the White House was violating the Impoundment Control Act, which requires that the executive branch spend appropriations that have been approved by Congress.[14] Trump dropped her.

And the list goes on like that.

There just isn't much evidence for withdrawls due to Dem delays.

Ultimately exec withdrawl and delays have been largely because of low number of nominations, poor vetting, problems with security clearance, paperwork, qualifications, etc.

But the real problem with your argument that the Dems are to blame is if that were the case then how do you explain Trumps record number of Judicial confirmations? The Dems would fight them just as hard or harder than executive nominations!

as of March 11 of each president's fourth year

 

https://www.heritage.org/judicialtracker

 

 

Edited April 12, 2020 by Jay McKinsey

[Jay McKinsey + 1,490]

3 hours ago, 0R0 said:

Didn't bookmark it. Machinations in the Senate don't really get my attention most of the time. 

Just for the record I'll point out that only the majority Republicans can reject a nominee. If the rejection rate is 75% then it is because the Republicans didn't like them.

[Radha + 262]

Thanks Tom for defending the right to free speech. It seems to be rapidly disappearing in this world.

 

Tom Kirkman

• Oil Major
•  
• 
• Moderators
• + 7,171
• 5,652 posts

8 hours ago

•  

 

10 hours ago, Dan Warnick said:

Click bait.

@Tom Kirkman

Thanks for the alert, but no issue.  So long as it's not advertising, moderators generally don't remove links. 

In this case, Radha seems to be focused on a singular topic, and he is free to post links that support his views.

[timamtti + 17]

10 hours ago, 0R0 said:

I don't care about the grammar etc. so long as I understand what you are saying. And I don't play the semantics when they are not the issue. So no criticism came from me. 

That comment was not for you but to @Ward Smith. 

[Arnon Shub + 1]

Bubble - One picture is worth a thousand words

Heading back: The Dow is closing its best week since 1938.
In the headline below: More than 16 million Americans have lost their jobs over the past three weeks.

Not to mention all the dead and sick, and the money it will cost.

In my opinion, the incentive money went to the capital market instead of the real economy.

Big bubble as the real economy will take at least two years and in my opinion 4 years to go back to where it was. The stock exchange, on the other hand - cannot be sure of an election year, but please do not compare with the pre-crisis price level. Good luck.

1976549.jpg (680×518).pdf

[0R0 + 6,251]

19 hours ago, Jay McKinsey said:

Just for the record I'll point out that only the majority Republicans can reject a nominee. If the rejection rate is 75% then it is because the Republicans didn't like them.

They go by committee vote and Dems need only one Rep committee member to stop a nomination. Which they have managed to do for a long time. To get a nomination through, the whole Rep membership on the committee is needed as the Dems generally act as a block. Reps act more independently so the Dems have a chance to pull one out. Watch some CSPAN on a nomination at the Senate. You will see quickly how Reps have individual questions, while the Dems are reading from the same hymnal.

[0R0 + 6,251]

22 hours ago, Dmitry Bedin said:

But wait, doesnt the mighty and so great country in the world has “best medical ppl”, best prepeared, best medical system in the Universe failed to test best ppl? Lmao

That would be Israel, with CFR of <1%, US is 4% Germany and Austria 2%. Swiss Irish are 4%, Italy, France, Netherlands, Spain, Belgium have 10-13%. Big difference is US only started using HCQ/Z two weeks ago at 23% of cases, and the successful nations have used it in 70% of cases. France and Italy prohibited use of HCQ/Z and HIV antivirals till two weeks ago. So presumably their numbers would fall in line going forward and US numbers will improve. 

The difference with allowing experimental treatments appears to be a reduction of deaths by 5 fold or better. 

The US medical system has outsourced the vast bulk of its pharma and medical consumables out of the country. This is the result - no capacity to ramp up for challenges. 

Edited April 12, 2020 by 0R0

[0R0 + 6,251]

On 4/11/2020 at 5:42 AM, 0R0 said:

Yes, that is the idea. The hurdle is that my estimates are rough and need actual field data from tests to be worked out. From the % positives numbers, the trend was a steady number around 40% for NY State, starting at 22% 3.17 rising to 50% at 3.30 and falling back since then to now 40% 4.9. NJ, most  of which (population) is in NYC Metro, is showing 45% up from about the same starting point. Similar to Queens borough. Both being commuters into Manhattan. Queens proper was showing a 57% positives rate last week 56.4% last reading. As the long end of people retaining virus is 3-4 weeks, we should start seeing a drop in % positives among symptomatics similar to the elevated temperature chart. . 

 An interesting point is the Copenhagen, Denmark bloodbank antibody test on CV19 which gave a 2.7% prevalence among 1000 samples. The results corresponds to greater Copenhagen, where the population density is about 5000/sq mile (about the same as Detroit) vs. the city proper which is 18000 (like Milan). Presumably the center provides a higher rate than the outlying parts of the metro areas. A test in an outlying town of low density gave no positives among 246 odd samples. 

If the R0 distribution Bill Ackman quotes is dominated by population density and the median is at 5.7 with the median hot spot city being at about 5000 people/sqm, then trying to get the relationship sized in the same way the collisions rate the scales to pressure for a gas to the power of 2/3 to turn a 3d to a 2d collision plane then for NYC at 70k/sqm vs median 5k would give an R0 for NYC of the order of 18. Though the densest area being Manhattan has a lower rate than commuter cities with 20k densities (which is why I suspect commuting is the source of most of the transmissions or a large minority). Using that relationship to try to gauge the order of magnitude of infection prevalence we would get 2.7% at R0 5.7 going to essentially everyone at R0 of 18 within 2 weeks. If the baseline is the assumption that all the cases came from the center of the city, corresponding to R0 of 7.5, the number infected in NYC would be 2100 fold, or still just about anyone not sequestered. Looking at the median R0 as perhaps overestimated due to NYC dominance in numbers then say the more appropriate R0 median would be say 4, so we have a number to work with, then that corresponding to a population density of 5000/sqm would get you to 400 fold number of infections and still just about everyone.  

With a weaker relationship assumed for population, (again, we still don't have the data itself) we might come up with something less than everybody for NYC. 

Looking at 2.7% prevalence on a 2 million population (assuming nearly all the cases were in greater Copenhagen) That would imply 54k infections, of which 4830 symptomatics tested positive, thus per one positive there are 11 infections. Applying that to NY state statistics at 170k positive would give 2 million infected, mostly in NYC metro. We are surely expecting NYC to have a substantially higher prevalence than Copenhagen. The question is then what is the ratio of symptomatics tested to total infected, would we expect more  or less?. 

Median age in Copenhagen is 41.8, in NYC it is 34.2 so we would expect a significantly larger portion of the infected to show symptoms in Copenhagen than in NYC. Thus the prevalence vs. positive tests (essentially of symptomatic cases)  would be higher in NYC. So infections vs. positive tests should be substantially higher because few under age 40 show any symptoms that would get them tested, and the most likely to get infected are of the asymptomatic age groups. The asymptomatic age group in NYC is ~60-65% of the population, but just under 50% of Copenhagen's population. So the infected to tested positive ratio should be higher by at least that proportion, or 13-14 fold vs 11 fold in Denmark. So would suggest 2.2-2.3 million infected in NY State. But that presumes all symptomatics are tested in NYC as they are in Copenhagen. That requires a look. 

https://twitter.com/DFisman/status/1247505420488507396

 

Temp and humidity survival of CV 19 on surfaces

https://aem.asm.org/content/76/9/2712

 

Adding some more info, the prevalence study in Heinsburg in Germany, a hot spot of CV19, at halfway through the sampling program of 1000 is at 15%. So NYC metro is likely to be substantially higher than that. My minimum estimate would be <30%. My expectation is more like 80% in the subway commuter boroughs and suburbs and 70-80% in Manhattan (they obviously commute much less).

Edited April 12, 2020 by 0R0

[BradleyPNW + 282]

Here's a link to a survey of economists by University of Chicago regarding the question of re-opening the economy. The consensus -- nearly unanimous -- of the surveyed economists was agreement with each following proposition. In other words, economists think we are better off keeping the stay-at-home orders in place. 

Question A: A comprehensive policy response to the coronavirus will involve tolerating a very large contraction in economic activity until the spread of infections has dropped significantly.

Question B: Abandoning severe lockdowns at a time when the likelihood of a resurgence in infections remains high will lead to greater total economic damage than sustaining the lockdowns to eliminate the resurgence risk.

Question C : Optimally, the government would invest more than it is currently doing in expanding treatment capacity through steps such as building temporary hospitals, accelerating testing, making more masks and ventilators, and providing financial incentives for the production of a successful vaccine.

http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/policy-for-the-covid-19-crisis/

Edited April 13, 2020 by BradleyPNW

[BradleyPNW + 282]

On 4/11/2020 at 2:14 PM, Gerry Maddoux said:

Infections will rise all around, so herd immunity will increase, but so will death--mostly in the infirm but others too.

From what I understand, hospital ER/ICU staff are at greatest risk, especially without adequate protection equipment. I believe the reason is concentration of exposure to the virus. It's not a good idea to kill off our skilled medical workers who take decades of training just so we can get Hobby Lobby re-opened. 

[timamtti + 17]

On 4/11/2020 at 12:55 PM, Ward Smith said:

Where pray tell did I say Researchgate was a "Journal"?

Ok, what was the point of mentioning researchgate? The essential thing is that they have nothing to do with the publication. They just list publications. 

 

On 4/11/2020 at 12:55 PM, Ward Smith said:

Indeed I have published, and Researchgate does far more than publish citations.

Well, good for you, but could you tell me what does it matter where they are based in all of this? 

[timamtti + 17]

2 hours ago, 0R0 said:

Watch some CSPAN on a nomination at the Senate. You will see quickly how Reps have individual questions, while the Dems are reading from the same hymnal.

I watched the most famous one in Trump's presidency namely Kavanaugh and it was a partisan slugfest. All dems attacked Kavanaugh and all reps defended him. 

Anyway the questions are not key here, but the voting. Regarding your initial claim that Trump hasn't been able to fill all the appointments because dems in senate have stopped them, this is only possible if the reps haven't held the line. And the reason they haven't (if they haven't) has been that someone appointed by Trump hasn't been appropriate for the position, which was exactly my original point. If it had been that the appointees where stopped by dems only because they were from the wrong party, the reps who had the majority would have been able to hammer them through. 

[timamtti + 17]

On 4/11/2020 at 12:57 PM, Ward Smith said:

Over 200. No President in recent history has had more obstruction Than President Trump

The swamp has critters who bite, and suck

Where does it say that on that page? If you do a search for the word "hold" it is not even mentioned on that page. 

Nobody is questioning the claim that Trump is completely inept to fill the appointments (and that's obvious from the graphs on the page that you link). The evidence that we needed for your claim that the "hold" as a tool had played any role in that poor performance by the White House. 

The numbers (550 appointments and 350 confirmations) indeed add up to 200, but you need to show the proof that all of that is due to holds that dems have used and not rejections by the senate (where reps hold the majority). 

[Jay McKinsey + 1,490]

10 hours ago, 0R0 said:

They go by committee vote and Dems need only one Rep committee member to stop a nomination. Which they have managed to do for a long time. To get a nomination through, the whole Rep membership on the committee is needed as the Dems generally act as a block. Reps act more independently so the Dems have a chance to pull one out. Watch some CSPAN on a nomination at the Senate. You will see quickly how Reps have individual questions, while the Dems are reading from the same hymnal.

So Democrats are obstructionist and at fault for Trump's failed nominations because they are too successful at getting Republicans to vote with them?🤣🤣🤣 

[0R0 + 6,251]

Just now, Jay McKinsey said:

So Democrats are obstructionist and at fault for Trump's failed nominations because they are too successful at getting Republicans to vote with them?🤣🤣🤣 

Pretty much because the Reps are not run the way the Dems are. Trump is leading the party away from its old structure, the fiscal conservative house members were voted out by Trump's people. That was 40 folks. Many of their block still sit in the Senate. They are alone. Though Dems are usually a salad of disparate groups, they were always that and rule as a communist structure from outside the official functions and hierarchy. The Reps were somewhat ideologically unified, this current mash up that Trump brought in is not Bush's GOP. They stray, they are unified in that their guy is the president. Stopped trying to figure out what else is holding it together. But it is. 

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

Back on topic:  World’s largest pork processor shuts down plant, warns of meat shortages during pandemic

CHICAGO, April 12 — Smithfield Foods, the world’s biggest pork processor, said on Sunday it will shut a U.S. plant indefinitely due to a rash of coronavirus cases among employees and warned the country was moving “perilously close to the edge” in supplies for grocers.

Slaughterhouse shutdowns are disrupting the U.S. food supply chain, crimping availability of meat at retail stores and leaving farmers without outlets for their livestock.

Smithfield extended the closure of its Sioux Falls, South Dakota, plant after initially saying it would idle temporarily for cleaning. The facility is one of the nation’s largest pork processing facilities, representing 4% to 5% of U.S. pork production, according to the company.

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem said on Saturday that 238 Smithfield employees had active cases of the new coronavirus, accounting for 55% of the state’s total. Noem and the mayor of Sioux Falls had recommended the company shut the plant, which has about 3,700 workers, for at least two weeks.

“It is impossible to keep our grocery stores stocked if our plants are not running,” Smithfield Chief Executive Ken Sullivan said in a statement on Sunday. “These facility closures will also have severe, perhaps disastrous, repercussions for many in the supply chain, first and foremost our nation’s livestock farmers.”

Smithfield said it will resume operations in Sioux Falls after further direction from local, state and federal officials. The company will pay employees for the next two weeks, according to the statement.

The company has been running its plants to supply U.S. consumers during the outbreak, Sullivan said.

“We have a stark choice as a nation: we are either going to produce food or not, even in the face of COVID-19,” he said.

Other major U.S. meat and poultry processors, including Tyson Foods Inc, Cargill Inc and JBS USA have already idled plants in other states.

[REAL Green + 65]

A possibility of a pseudo normality in regards to health is likely 2 years off meaning there will be no overall normality because that time period of virus waving altered activity means the economy has now been disrupted beyond recognition.  This economic dislocation will mean new problems both health and general are assured.  This condition calls for bold action on painful policies of degrowth allowing an economic drop to land on a stable foundation instead of the disruptive successive stair steps caused by failed status quo efforts.  This then calls for a wartime like response of actions with focus on food and logistics with triage occurring with non-essential industries.  Retirement and playtime for the privileged is over.  The sooner these painful steps are taken the better.  The sooner global agreement is made on common efforts the better.  This is a two-year period of economic depression and adapted health responses. 

 

Currently we are in the honeymoon phase of common cause of people fighting the virus in adversity of lockdown but this will be a peak of human cooperation.  As the economic situation deteriorates day by day cascading consequences and emotional breaking points means we are entering a period of social disruption.  Dealing with this will be important as is the health and economic response.  So, we have successive waves of trauma on multiple fronts.  Don’t forget the usual natural disasters ahead that likely will not have the resources to be cleaned up like in the past.  This is the end of the world as we know it but it also might be the beginning of a new world with more stability than the last.  This said I doubt a degrowthing modern world can ever be truly stable so expect more stresses further ahead even if we solve these immediate problems.  Techno optimism and sustainable development allowing increasing populations with increasing comforts are likely gone.  This also means localized collapse or worse in places that can’t adapt.  It hopefully will not mean wars because if that is added to this list the decline will be far worse.

 

“This Is Where The World Is On The "Corona Curve" At This Moment: An Update”

https://tinyurl.com/uowkghj     zero hedge

 

“The bottom line, and somewhat counterintuitively, the sooner the world declares victory against the Wu Flu, the faster the general population will rush back into "social un-distancing", sparking new case clusters as the infection restarts from scratch, forcing authorities to re-establish social distancing once again, and so on, as the entire process repeats from square one.  Which brings us to the latest assessment made from Minneapolis Fed chief and former Goldman and PIMCO staffer, Neel Kashkari who has somehow also emerged as a budding epidemiologist and who today warned that without an effective therapy or a vaccine for the novel coronavirus, the US economy could face 18 months of "rolling shutdowns" as the outbreak recedes and flares up again.  "We’re looking around the world. As they relax the economic controls, the virus flares back up again,” the 2020 FOMC voter Kashkari said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” Kashkari  "We could have these waves of flareups, controls, flareups and controls until we actually get a therapy or a vaccine. I think we should all be focusing on an 18-month strategy for our health care system and our economy."  Kashkari warned that “this could be a long hard road that we have ahead of us until we get either to an effective therapy or a vaccine. It’s hard for me to see a V-shaped recovery under that scenario,” he said.”

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

You’ve said alot, most of which we already know, but have not offered a single suggestion as to how you would address any of the issues mentioned.

That being the case, why did you even bother to post? There are hundreds of posts on this forum preaching ‘doom & gloom’. Believe it or not, the rank and file understand the situation after having it drilled into their heads by people like you and the media for the past two months.

If you have any meaningful suggestions to help others survive the Armeggedon which you have detailed, please share.

 

[timamtti + 17]

6 hours ago, 0R0 said:

Pretty much because the Reps are not run the way the Dems are. Trump is leading the party away from its old structure, the fiscal conservative house members were voted out by Trump's people. That was 40 folks. Many of their block still sit in the Senate. They are alone. Though Dems are usually a salad of disparate groups, they were always that and rule as a communist structure from outside the official functions and hierarchy. The Reps were somewhat ideologically unified, this current mash up that Trump brought in is not Bush's GOP. They stray, they are unified in that their guy is the president. Stopped trying to figure out what else is holding it together. But it is. 

Then stop saying that Trump's appointments were stopped by dems. They were not. If the reps had worked together, there was nothing the dems could have done to stop the appointments. And of course as shown by the graphs, also the White House itself was inept at even making the nominations lacking way behind all the previous administrations except maybe GHW Bush, who of course didn't even need to make that many new appointments as he inherited the administration from Reagan. Clinton and Obama were about 100-200 nominations ahead of Trump throughout the time period (except for the very beginning when nobody had done any nominations). You just can't blame dems for any obstructionism if the root cause is the fact that Trump's administration is just incapable of even making the nominations that need to be confirmed in the senate. 

And of course the curves might actually be worse for Trump if take into account the fact that he keeps firing people as well. So, for some positions he may have had to nominate people twice when other administrations got their appointment right on the first go. This of course means that the gap in the curve for first time appointments might be even bigger for Trump compared to others. 

[D Coyne + 305]

On 4/10/2020 at 10:17 PM, Ward Smith said:

Guess what chum, my wife is in the US and she's Chinese and she not I sent that same video out to everyone she could. I'm fluent enough in mandarin to understand what the woman was saying, and it didn't escape my notice that she's married to a white man. Her behavior was doubly reprehensible, first for hoovering up all the PPE she could find but secondly for bragging about it while filming herself! Your ire should be directed at her not Tom. 

As for supposed attacks? I don't believe any democrat, ever when talking about racial attacks. Every so called racist attack they've been involved with have turned out to be hoaxes! But I'm not seeing you or anyone complaining about that! Selective outrage indeed. 

Ward,

You are a funny guy.

So no racist attack has ever occurred anywhere in the World?

Do I have that right?

Obviously every single one has been staged. 

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

56 minutes ago, D Coyne said:

Ward,

You are a funny guy.

So no racist attack has ever occurred anywhere in the World?

Do I have that right?

Obviously every single one has been staged. 

Are you purposely obtuse, or does it just come naturally? I'm obviously talking about the US here, and you're talking about the world? I've seen racist attacks of black groups against whites, in fact there used to be entire sections on YouTube showing these. But the democrats don't want to talk about that, it doesn't fit their whites are the cause of all evil narrative. I stand by my earlier statement. If the Demoncrats are promoting it, it's fake. 

[Gerry Maddoux + 3,627]

Vis a vis the all-important concept of herd immunity, we may have just seen the striking results of close-contact contagion. The entire 4,800 member crew of the U.S. aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt has been tested. Only 600 tested positive, and of those, only 40% have shown symptoms. That's 240 in a crew of 4,800. But only 12.5% infectivity! 

This is quite a bit lower infectivity than I would have thought. Perhaps they're better cordoned off than I am imagining. However, those are close quarters and when you consider interaction in work, dining, recreation and general assembly, it's pretty amazing to me that only a 12-13% contagion rate has occurred thus far. One might interpret this as a sign of preconditioned immunity to the virus--perhaps by enduring many previous coronavirus infections. Since most of the common colds are now due to coronaviruses, this would make sense. 

So, it may be that herd immunity--of a very unique nature--already existed in densely-packed communities even before this Covid-19 hit them. Wouldn't that be grand? I'm sure that some smart people are on this. ORO has been our standard-bearer and overall knowledge bank for this whole fascinating chapter--I'd be interested in his view. In fact, I'm beginning to think that ORO may be a polymath, and I'm pleased to learn from his thoughts. (I would strongly urge him to put these various streams of consciousness--geopolitics, Covid-19, epidemiology, the resistance to use anecdotal miracles, the oil wars, the egos of men--all down in a book.)