Which producers will shut in first?

[U_P + 22]

Just now, Douglas Buckland said:

Good to know! My faith in humanity was taking a hit!!!😂

Yeah I know, one of the problems with chatting cnversation is that you can't take physical cues of communication, which i guess is why it is much easier to get misunderstood. Take for instance the whole discussion about the oil in the SPR, my whole point was about labeling what comes out of there properly, not that the SPR is useless...

Anyway what do you think of leasing space to producers in the SPR?

[Rob Plant + 2,647]

12 hours ago, 0R0 said:

It is inevitable. If you are not online and deliver then you don't have a business. I don't believe the oil demand drop we had so far is going to continue. The grocery restaurant and retail delivery services are bigger oil consumers going forward than you might think. The initial reaction for all consumers is to retrench. Going ahead it is a stabilization of expectations of who's jobs continue, move to the delivery side, and who will stay unemployed for a while. That includes many restaurant owners that are shifting to online deliveries. Industrial work onsite that requires commutes will continue or resume fairly quickly.  

We have had a very long squeeze on margins due to high oil prices  and a prolonged demographic dip that just ended at the start of the 2010s, Things were improving rapidly but have not recovered to 1999 ratios. So there was yet to be a general accumulation of financial resources for small and even large business and individuals, nor even sufficient to pay down debt.  It is no surprise many businesses couldn't survive without revenues for over a month, even if they furloughed their entire staff. So much of it has been low margin low paying that it could not have been otherwise. If anything, I am surprised that we hadn't seen worse already.

Yep high volume low margin producers are doomed and will go first.

Niche businesses and "best in class" producers who command a higher margin for their products will do just fine, and when the shitstorm is over they will mop up the market share left by the ones who have gone bust.

Recessions, depressions are scary to the weak but opportunities to the strong, always has been always will be!

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

10 minutes ago, U_P said:

Yeah I know, one of the problems with chatting cnversation is that you can't take physical cues of communication, which i guess is why it is much easier to get misunderstood. Take for instance the whole discussion about the oil in the SPR, my whole point was about labeling what comes out of there properly, not that the SPR is useless...

Anyway what do you think of leasing space to producers in the SPR?

Renting storage volume in the SPR sounds like a nightmare to me. It is not as simple as pump in/pump out. Any infrastructure/transportation fees would need to be assigned to the oil going in, as well as the storage/rental fee. Also, all the oil going in would get commingled, the oil out would not be identical to that coming in. How do you price that.

Furthermore, storage and over supply has gotten us where we are now, is storage in the SPR just ‘kicking the can down the road’?

[U_P + 22]

15 minutes ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Renting storage volume in the SPR sounds like a nightmare to me. It is not as simple as pump in/pump out. Any infrastructure/transportation fees would need to be assigned to the oil going in, as well as the storage/rental fee. Also, all the oil going in would get commingled, the oil out would not be identical to that coming in. How do you price that.

Furthermore, storage and over supply has gotten us where we are now, is storage in the SPR just ‘kicking the can down the road’?

Exactly what I thought, difficult and costly!

[wrs + 893]

Trump is now suggesting shutting in GOM production.  That is all on federal leases but I don't know if the leases allow this.  In any case, this is 2mmbbl/day that Trump has some leverage over.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-administration-discussed-shutting-oil-production-in-gulf-of-mexico-11585923887

[Gerry Maddoux + 3,627]

15 hours ago, Ward Smith said:

Gerry, let's not conflate the workers in the trenches, who are as you're saying doing excellent work, with their mid level pointy haired bosses who are the source of these problems. While great people might be in the labs, they probably have nothing to do with the bureaucracy upstream, which is where the problems lie. 

I'm so sick of talking about this I wish I had kept my mouth shut . . . and others are probably wishing the same thing. I have this bad trait that I can't read something, or watch something, that I know to be patently false without speaking up--it has cost me friends but it is part of my DNA. 

Okay, I voted for Mr. Trump, and I will vote for him again. He makes mistakes. The mistake that I fear will wipe out his bid for a second term is that he totally eliminated the singular position that monitored potential bad things from bioterrorism viruses. This has really nothing to do with the hierarchy of the CDC, which may be as you say: pointy-headed. The post the president eliminated was in the National Security Council. I have tried to hint about this, but now I have to come out and put the record straight.

Right after 911, you may recall that ricin was being talked about, as well as anthrax. Smallpox being aerosolized was another topic. It was a crazy time. People were getting envelopes filled with crap. So George W, who had just cobbled together Homeland Security, created a post for one person to direct a small team to coordinate these various bioterrorism threats. 

The PREDICT project grew from that. Again, the team was small but they coordinated with the CDC. To clarify how big this problem is, they had over a thousand viruses on their worry list, including about a hundred that were labeled, "novel" viruses. They were well aware that a coronavirus could jump genus and species lines and come into humans. They actually had open "plants" ready to knowingly infiltrate worrisome areas, like the Wuhan Level 4 Biosafety Lab. Some of these were already in place. It went under "data-sharing." It was really to "predict" which country in the axis of evil would try to wipe us out--thus the name.

Talk about paltry--the entire budget for that was only a few million (like <5M)--not billion. Again, this was within the purview of national security--because that threat became obvious at 911. 

Then that post within the National Security Council was eliminated. Suddenly, no one was in charge of looking at these viruses, including well over a hundred novel killer viruses. Suddenly, the people "sharing data" with the Wuhan lab and others around the world were . . . . gone. 

Would keeping them have made a difference? Damned if I know. But I do know that the very person I helped put into the Oval Office made a very bad decision that day. He probably had advice--bad advice--but he owns it. I have been reluctant to even put this down in print . . . because it looks like I'm out to get him. I'm not, just the opposite. This is no time to throw stones, but instead is the time to unite as Americans and support our leaders and institutions.

Like I said, I can't stand by and read misleading information. Watching out for something like this was a NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL issue, within Homeland Security, and was being done pretty well; and not by my friend. My friend has been long gone--Obama also closed down this post--and then brought someone else in when Ebola hit. It seems every president has to dick with that post. 

Unfortunately, just about the time COVID-19 was being spawned--whether randomly at the wet market or intentionally at the level 4 lab in Wuhan--the post at the National Security Council was being eliminated. But don't believe me. I'm sure you're going to get an earful of this by the left--I just saw my first blurb about it this morning, so it's coming.

Everything has unintended consequences. Pointing a finger at a truly excellent CDC creates one of these. The "watcher" used to work in the National Security Council. The watcher coordinated with very talented people within the CDC. And when the watcher was let go, well, there was no longer someone to report to the president at the National Security Council briefings in the Situation Room, and no one in the CDC to jump into that role. Again, the driller can't suddenly become the mud engineer. For BLA to keep demonizing the CDC in a sophomoric way ("the CDC is a joke"), when he doesn't have the knowledge or horsepower to do so is disingenuous. To repeatedly vouch for his silliness is irresponsible.  

Get it now? 

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

28 minutes ago, Gerry Maddoux said:

I'm so sick of talking about this I wish I had kept my mouth shut . . . and others are probably wishing the same thing. I have this bad trait that I can't read something, or watch something, that I know to be patently false without speaking up--it has cost me friends but it is part of my DNA. 

Okay, I voted for Mr. Trump, and I will vote for him again. He makes mistakes. The mistake that I fear will wipe out his bid for a second term is that he totally eliminated the singular position that monitored potential bad things from bioterrorism viruses. This has really nothing to do with the hierarchy of the CDC, which may be as you say: pointy-headed. The post the president eliminated was in the National Security Council. I have tried to hint about this, but now I have to come out and put the record straight.

Right after 911, you may recall that ricin was being talked about, as well as anthrax. Smallpox being aerosolized was another topic. It was a crazy time. People were getting envelopes filled with crap. So George W, who had just cobbled together Homeland Security, created a post for one person to direct a small team to coordinate these various bioterrorism threats. 

The PREDICT project grew from that. Again, the team was small but they coordinated with the CDC. To clarify how big this problem is, they had over a thousand viruses on their worry list, including about a hundred that were labeled, "novel" viruses. They were well aware that a coronavirus could jump genus and species lines and come into humans. They actually had open "plants" ready to knowingly infiltrate worrisome areas, like the Wuhan Level 4 Biosafety Lab. Some of these were already in place. It went under "data-sharing." It was really to "predict" which country in the axis of evil would try to wipe us out--thus the name.

Talk about paltry--the entire budget for that was only a few million (like <5M)--not billion. Again, this was within the purview of national security--because that threat became obvious at 911. 

Then that post within the National Security Council was eliminated. Suddenly, no one was in charge of looking at these viruses, including well over a hundred novel killer viruses. Suddenly, the people "sharing data" with the Wuhan lab and others around the world were . . . . gone. 

Would keeping them have made a difference? Damned if I know. But I do know that the very person I helped put into the Oval Office made a very bad decision that day. He probably had advice--bad advice--but he owns it. I have been reluctant to even put this down in print . . . because it looks like I'm out to get him. I'm not, just the opposite. This is no time to throw stones, but instead is the time to unite as Americans and support our leaders and institutions.

Like I said, I can't stand by and read misleading information. Watching out for something like this was a NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL issue, within Homeland Security, and was being done pretty well; and not by my friend. My friend has been long gone--Obama also closed down this post--and then brought someone else in when Ebola hit. It seems every president has to dick with that post. 

Unfortunately, just about the time COVID-19 was being spawned--whether randomly at the wet market or intentionally at the level 4 lab in Wuhan--the post at the National Security Council was being eliminated. But don't believe me. I'm sure you're going to get an earful of this by the left--I just saw my first blurb about it this morning, so it's coming.

Everything has unintended consequences. Pointing a finger at a truly excellent CDC creates one of these. The "watcher" used to work in the National Security Council. The watcher coordinated with very talented people within the CDC. And when the watcher was let go, well, there was no longer someone to report to the president at the National Security Council briefings in the Situation Room, and no one in the CDC to jump into that role. Again, the driller can't suddenly become the mud engineer. For BLA to keep demonizing the CDC in a sophomoric way ("the CDC is a joke"), when he doesn't have the knowledge or horsepower to do so is disingenuous. To repeatedly vouch for his silliness is irresponsible.  

Get it now? 

Gerry I admire and respect you, so don't want this to be a constant pissing match. I can concede your point about the missing Homeland Security post. However, the question is what would have been different at the CDC if that post were still filled? Would the CDC have miraculously allowed outside labs to begin testing for the virus? The fact they not only didn't, but directly opposed this is my complaint. In your responses I'm not remembering you addressing that specific point. 

Hell, ask your friend if he thinks the CDC did the right thing, jealously guarding their turf long after their failures were evident? There's plenty of blame to go around in this, but as a citizen of Washington State I'm uniquely affected by their intransigence if not incompetence. 

[Gerry Maddoux + 3,627]

^

I don't know the answer. 

I understand your concerns. 

The truth is, I don't think anyone expected the Hitler of viruses, even after SARS. And they should have. 

The CDC was in a pickle: Just about everything this country relies on, medically, is made in China . . . and that's the very place they distrusted the most. If you buy a drug with Pfizer, Merck, Regeneron, Giliad, Sanofi, AstroZeneca, Bristol Myers Squib, AbbieV on the label, chances are it was made in China or India. Same with reagents, testing kits, masks, and the like. 

We let this happen. We, the people. We thought it great that medicine and all its tinctures and ointments and things you swallow or get stuck in your veins had been monetized. You think oil is bad, medicine had turned into a huge mill. The CDC wasn't part of that but they were victim to testing devices made in China, the very country that unleashed all these godawful zoonotic viruses upon mankind: SARS, Swine flu, Bird flu, many mutations of those, then this Hitler of viruses. I don't have a single resource within the CDC but I imagine they were wary of China but didn't want to be seen as politically incorrect--hell, they're not dummies down there; watching all this stuff made in the very country that despises us had to be unsettling. Who do they tell? And when the tariffs went on, medical supplies and medications were unwitting victims of those tariffs--and I'm sure the CDC saw this and lifted their skirts in anxiety and didn't know who to protest to. Would that person be the president, the man who was actually declaring the tariffs on . . . reagents and testing kits and medication? Or would that be Mr. Kudlow or Mr. Mnukin, the president's money men? And if they had done that, how exactly do you think that would have gone over? 

I understand your anger: everyone is angry. I'm angry because I have applied for a compassionate medical license (I let mine expire), but I haven't heard back (the fact that I am 76 and have only one lung may have something to do with that). Who wouldn't like to help out now? I'm also angry because oil has collapsed through utter stupidity and pride. And my portfolio has taken a big hickey. Like many people, I've watched all this happen with utter disbelief . . . and I've seen a hell of a lot in my life. It breaks my heart that my three friends with Covid are barely able to talk on the phone and I pray for them, fear for them, fear for us all. I have taken to reciting the chant, There is nothing to fear but fear itself, as I nearly ruin my drawers because I worked with bad-assed viruses for several years and I've looked at the complexity of the RNA in this one and wonder just how Satan got into the virology lab. 

If I come across as a jerk on this panel, it's because I have fear. And the reason I have fear is because this thing is much more dangerous than anyone thought. I hate to poke a stick in the eye of the CDC because I'm pretty damn sure they're scared too, and full of remorse for not somehow divining that Hitler was on the loose and that this time he would go by the name of COVID-19. The outcome of whole cities depends on the alacrity of response to the very first few cases: Seattle and San Francisco good, Denver and NYC bad, Florida we'll see but probably very, very bad. I have watched charisma sell: Cuomo in NYC, despite the fact that he was slow on the uptick and nobody is blaming him. Governor Polis in Colorado was also slow but it's not nice to pick on a gay governor so no one is blaming him for the carnage in Colorado. The governor in Florida is a complete innocent because he's Republican in a red state, and even thought his state has 5,000 cases with the numbers about to go parabolic he is just today--TODAY!!!--declaring a stay at home mandate. 

I am tired of everyone and their dog trying to blame the CDC for something they may or may not have dropped the ball on. People's lives are at stake here; I'll bet they're all depressed; they know they're targets. I once watched an irate surgeon blame a scrub nurse for the death of a patient. She took his abuse, even when he called her everything in the world for his own mistake. She was immensely talented but strange too, and she sent an anonymous note to the transplant team that some good organs were about to become available and then killed herself. You can't take dedicated people risking their lives every goddamn day, working on trying to keep us all from dying of salmonella from the lettuce, or some fruit bat virus that got cobbled together because a bunch of idiots in China want to eat bats they bought at the wet market. 

Speaking of that, why has the United States government allowed China to fire one of these zoonotic viruses at us every year for the last twenty? This is a form of biologic warfare. If they had fired on a ship and cost twenty lives we'd have bombed them into oblivion, but they fire one of these viruses at us and we blame the CDC, even though said agency had no say-so in where the testing kits were made, couldn't raise a voice against the bioterrorism that was being waged under the guise of wet markets and "Level 4 BIOSAFETY Laboratories." What the hell are we all thinking? Why are we turning on our own wonderful institutions when we should be calling for the complete and utter isolation of communist china?

Ward, I'm not a confrontational person, believe it or not. I am a serious man, but also perhaps the world's greatest proponent for the weak and vulnerable, and believe in my heart that if we can't take care of the weakest amongst us, we are nothing. I have watched through my entire career in medicine as the United States monetized medicine--testing the insured to death and not testing the uninsured at all. I don't understand that. I don't understand why, as the world's (formerly) wealthiest nation we don't understand that health is to be treasured, and that we don't outsource everything having to do with health to a country that clearly loathes us. Why didn't you raise a voice against the CDC a year ago? Why didn't I? Why don't we now, as a nation, support the very institution that washes our lettuce and does the best they can when Hitler comes to our shores?

Answer me that.  

[Rasmus Jorgensen + 1,169]

2 hours ago, wrs said:

Trump is now suggesting shutting in GOM production.  That is all on federal leases but I don't know if the leases allow this.  In any case, this is 2mmbbl/day that Trump has some leverage over.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-administration-discussed-shutting-oil-production-in-gulf-of-mexico-11585923887

he should have leverage over federal lands that support shale as well... either pipelines or production...

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

10 minutes ago, Gerry Maddoux said:

Answer me that.

Dr. Maddoux, it cannot be answered. 

I woud observe, though, that the abject failures of the pharma industry in hiring these MBA kids and following their ideas of out-sourcing production from safe, supervised US manufacturing plants to some ridiculous cinder-block building in China or India with the "cooks" inside using a high-school chemistry book as an instruction manual, and expecting decent pharmaceuticals to flow from that, is just cynical beyond belief.  The guys that did that belong in jail. 

[ceo_energemsier + 1,818]

4 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

Dr. Maddoux, it cannot be answered. 

I woud observe, though, that the abject failures of the pharma industry in hiring these MBA kids and following their ideas of out-sourcing production from safe, supervised US manufacturing plants to some ridiculous cinder-block building in China or India with the "cooks" inside using a high-school chemistry book as an instruction manual, and expecting decent pharmaceuticals to flow from that, is just cynical beyond belief.  The guys that did that belong in jail. 

Also lets not forget the fact that in the US , Gov policies (of whatever political party(ies) ) may have caused the mass fleeing of medical companies and pharma overseas.

Just from recent history, under CRAPPOBAMACARE, how many new taxes were levied upon the medical device manufacturers and pharma companies? that did cause many to move their operations offshore.

Health and pharma and medical equip and supplies should be on the list as top priorities for national security and going forward the Gov should enforce the manufacturing and stock piling of essential and critical medical equip, pharma and supplies on US soil.

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

1 minute ago, ceo_energemsier said:

Also lets not forget the fact that in the US , Gov policies (of whatever political party(ies) ) may have caused the mass fleeing of medical companies and pharma overseas.

Just from recent history, under CRAPPOBAMACARE, how many new taxes were levied upon the medical device manufacturers and pharma companies? that did cause many to move their operations offshore.

Health and pharma and medical equip and supplies should be on the list as top priorities for national security and going forward the Gov should enforce the manufacturing and stock piling of essential and critical medical equip, pharma and supplies on US soil.

How would you feel if those companies are asked / ordered not to sell medicine to the states?

See trump asshole request to 3M to stop mask exports. The world will remember!

 

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

5 minutes ago, ceo_energemsier said:

Health and pharma and medical equip and supplies should be on the list as top priorities for national security and going forward the Gov should enforce the manufacturing and stock piling of essential and critical medical equip, pharma and supplies on US soil.

Communism

Edited April 3, 2020 by Enthalpic

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

11 minutes ago, ceo_energemsier said:

Also lets not forget the fact that in the US , Gov policies (of whatever political party(ies) ) may have caused the mass fleeing of medical companies and pharma overseas.

Just from recent history, under CRAPPOBAMACARE, how many new taxes were levied upon the medical device manufacturers and pharma companies? that did cause many to move their operations offshore.

Health and pharma and medical equip and supplies should be on the list as top priorities for national security and going forward the Gov should enforce the manufacturing and stock piling of essential and critical medical equip, pharma and supplies on US soil.

Yet those policies (causing mass fleeing) were not from the various White Houses.  They flowed from the Congress.  Historically, to promote investment in Puerto Rico, all those big pharma guys built their actual production facilities down in Puerto Rico, whre special tax credits and tax write-offs were issued, specifically for those plants.  Then the COngress, iin some very mis-guided burst of political correctness that everyone should be equal, removed that tax benefits  (which effectively allowed those plants to run with zero tax on their earnings).  Bye-bye plants. 

And the result, as they say, is history.  The production moved to India, China, and, curiously, to Israel, as Israel has a zero-tariff and zero-quota barrier to shipping to the USA, compliments of the AIPAC   [American Israeli Political Action Committee, run by a far-right Zionist rabbi in Brooklyn, New York City].   And, yet once again, politics determined the fate of millions. 

Edited April 3, 2020 by Jan van Eck

[Rob Plant + 2,647]

43 minutes ago, Gerry Maddoux said:

Ward, I'm not a confrontational person, believe it or not. I am a serious man, but also perhaps the world's greatest proponent for the weak and vulnerable, and believe in my heart that if we can't take care of the weakest amongst us, we are nothing. I have watched through my entire career in medicine as the United States monetized medicine--testing the insured to death and not testing the uninsured at all. I don't understand that. I don't understand why, as the world's (formerly) wealthiest nation we don't understand that health is to be treasured, and that we don't outsource everything having to do with health to a country that clearly loathes us. Why didn't you raise a voice against the CDC a year ago? Why didn't I? Why don't we now, as a nation, support the very institution that washes our lettuce and does the best they can when Hitler comes to our shores?

Gerry you sound like one hell of a nice guy to me!

compassionate, thoughtful, kind,caring and intelligent.

wouldve loved to share a beer with you but I guess there aren’t gonna be any flights across the pond anytime soon!

stay safe buddy!

 

[BLA + 1,666]

10 hours ago, Gerry Maddoux said:

I'm so sick of talking about this I wish I had kept my mouth shut . . . and others are probably wishing the same thing. I have this bad trait that I can't read something, or watch something, that I know to be patently false without speaking up--it has cost me friends but it is part of my DNA. 

Okay, I voted for Mr. Trump, and I will vote for him again. He makes mistakes. The mistake that I fear will wipe out his bid for a second term is that he totally eliminated the singular position that monitored potential bad things from bioterrorism viruses. This has really nothing to do with the hierarchy of the CDC, which may be as you say: pointy-headed. The post the president eliminated was in the National Security Council. I have tried to hint about this, but now I have to come out and put the record straight.

Right after 911, you may recall that ricin was being talked about, as well as anthrax. Smallpox being aerosolized was another topic. It was a crazy time. People were getting envelopes filled with crap. So George W, who had just cobbled together Homeland Security, created a post for one person to direct a small team to coordinate these various bioterrorism threats. 

The PREDICT project grew from that. Again, the team was small but they coordinated with the CDC. To clarify how big this problem is, they had over a thousand viruses on their worry list, including about a hundred that were labeled, "novel" viruses. They were well aware that a coronavirus could jump genus and species lines and come into humans. They actually had open "plants" ready to knowingly infiltrate worrisome areas, like the Wuhan Level 4 Biosafety Lab. Some of these were already in place. It went under "data-sharing." It was really to "predict" which country in the axis of evil would try to wipe us out--thus the name.

Talk about paltry--the entire budget for that was only a few million (like <5M)--not billion. Again, this was within the purview of national security--because that threat became obvious at 911. 

Then that post within the National Security Council was eliminated. Suddenly, no one was in charge of looking at these viruses, including well over a hundred novel killer viruses. Suddenly, the people "sharing data" with the Wuhan lab and others around the world were . . . . gone. 

Would keeping them have made a difference? Damned if I know. But I do know that the very person I helped put into the Oval Office made a very bad decision that day. He probably had advice--bad advice--but he owns it. I have been reluctant to even put this down in print . . . because it looks like I'm out to get him. I'm not, just the opposite. This is no time to throw stones, but instead is the time to unite as Americans and support our leaders and institutions.

Like I said, I can't stand by and read misleading information. Watching out for something like this was a NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL issue, within Homeland Security, and was being done pretty well; and not by my friend. My friend has been long gone--Obama also closed down this post--and then brought someone else in when Ebola hit. It seems every president has to dick with that post. 

Unfortunately, just about the time COVID-19 was being spawned--whether randomly at the wet market or intentionally at the level 4 lab in Wuhan--the post at the National Security Council was being eliminated. But don't believe me. I'm sure you're going to get an earful of this by the left--I just saw my first blurb about it this morning, so it's coming.

Everything has unintended consequences. Pointing a finger at a truly excellent CDC creates one of these. The "watcher" used to work in the National Security Council. The watcher coordinated with very talented people within the CDC. And when the watcher was let go, well, there was no longer someone to report to the president at the National Security Council briefings in the Situation Room, and no one in the CDC to jump into that role. Again, the driller can't suddenly become the mud engineer. For BLA to keep demonizing the CDC in a sophomoric way ("the CDC is a joke"), when he doesn't have the knowledge or horsepower to do so is disingenuous. To repeatedly vouch for his silliness is irresponsible.  

Get it now? 

Well written.

Composition "A"

Content  "D+"

Reality    "F"

CDC is a $12 Billion/year  debacle 

Just when we needed them they F 'd up.

As was once famously stated, " $12 Billion doesn't buy you crap "

I beg to differ.  Unfortunately, $12 Billion/year did buy us crap.

A little long in the tooth.  Tried to text it to my mother.  Wouldn't work. I guess it was more than 140 characters. 

Edited April 4, 2020 by BLA

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

1 hour ago, Rob Plant said:

but I guess there aren’t gonna be any flights across the pond anytime soon!

You should be able to take a ferry over to France, then a flight to the Island of St. Pierre, located a few miles off the Southern coast of Newfoundland  and which still is sovereign French soil  (and thus a domestic flight), then pay a local boatman to smuggle you into Newfoundland, then by ferry into Nova Scotia, train to Montreal, and take a car South through the Derby Line border into Vermont, telling Customs that you are going there to inspect the Jay Peak ski hill, which the bankruptcy court trustee has up for sale.  Be sure to wear a face mask...😋

Edited April 3, 2020 by Jan van Eck
typing error

[Rob Plant + 2,647]

No country in the world was ready for this!

pretty much every country has made mistakes in tackling it. Finger pointing and blaming isn’t going to help! What’s the point in retrospectively analysing decisions that may have been wrong or too slow unless you can show other States or countries where you went wrong?

the problem with the US is as Douglas pointed out, it’s the governor that makes the decisions. If you have a crap Ill informed governor then your state is in a world of pain and there’s little you can do about it. 
there seems no joined up thinking!

In the UK our Health minister told the nation the government had made mistakes, everyone knew this, but he also said we are ALL in this war together which galvanised the country. We built a 4000 bed hospital and got it up and running in 9 days!!!!

That would normally take 2 years

Guys it’s time to have a coherent strategy and all pull together on this one!

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

16 minutes ago, Rob Plant said:

Guys it’s time to have a coherent strategy and all pull together on this one!

 

The coherent strategy is to stay away from China.  This fantasy of manufacturing in China and importing the finished goods here is a failure. Right now the US is facing an infestation of the "emerald ash borer," a parasite from China that attacks the ash trees.  Ash is a very valuable US wood crop.  the ash borer hitched a ride inside the wooden pallets and crates that were used to ship China's goods to the USA.  Some people got some cheap stuff, and now 16 million ash trees are history, the species will be wiped out.  Just lovely.       

[John Foote + 1,135]

1 hour ago, Rob Plant said:

No country in the world was ready for this!

True dat!

That said, in terms of testing, closing borders, quarentines, the USA is a laggard, and if we have plan yet, please tell me what it is.

My own city has mostly done it's bit, a successfully flattened curve. Then a bunch over too rich college students who charted a plane to Mexico to party, couldn't get their money back, so they went, and yup, instant surge of positives my a highly socialized group. Mexico has since done us a favor and closed their borders, but what were we thinking allowing folks from in from any country without a mandatory quarantine for two weeks. Heck, my employer put that into policy mid-February. This is not new news.

Is there anyone here would hire Krushner to hire a extremely complicated, scientific problem? You'd laugh the guy off if he showed up on rig, or tried to run a refinery or ID where to drill. 

This is a Manhattan Project, not a real estate development.

[Rob Plant + 2,647]

1 hour ago, Jan van Eck said:

 

The coherent strategy is to stay away from China.  This fantasy of manufacturing in China and importing the finished goods here is a failure. Right now the US is facing an infestation of the "emerald ash borer," a parasite from China that attacks the ash trees.  Ash is a very valuable US wood crop.  the ash borer hitched a ride inside the wooden pallets and crates that were used to ship China's goods to the USA.  Some people got some cheap stuff, and now 16 million ash trees are history, the species will be wiped out.  Just lovely.       

I would suggest a reasonable strategy for anyone would be to take seriously social distancing, even if your state isn’t. It may just save your life or the life of one of your family

[0R0 + 6,251]

6 hours ago, Gerry Maddoux said:

Everything has unintended consequences. Pointing a finger at a truly excellent CDC creates one of these. The "watcher" used to work in the National Security Council. The watcher coordinated with very talented people within the CDC. And when the watcher was let go, well, there was no longer someone to report to the president at the National Security Council briefings in the Situation Room, and no one in the CDC to jump into that role. Again, the driller can't suddenly become the mud engineer. For BLA to keep demonizing the CDC in a sophomoric way ("the CDC is a joke"), when he doesn't have the knowledge or horsepower to do so is disingenuous. To repeatedly vouch for his silliness is irresponsible.  

 

The problem is not with the professional staff and lab folks. The problem is at the top of the CDC where the power resides and where internal considerations and power and control issues drove decisions and regulatory action, as they did in the FDA, to PREVENT testing at any level. If they wanted to promote mass propagation of the virus, they could hardly have done better. 

I have no reason to doubt your judgement  of CDC people on the professional side nor of the capablities of the National Security team. I do get lots of reports about the CDC's procedure writing adventure of the last decades and their incomprehensibility and irrelevance to the medical professionals.  I don't know if the NSC team had anything to do with that. I presume they had, as their role was not just monitoring. 

4 hours ago, ceo_energemsier said:

Health and pharma and medical equip and supplies should be on the list as top priorities for national security and going forward the Gov should enforce the manufacturing and stock piling of essential and critical medical equip, pharma and supplies on US soil.

That isn't the way to go as it is a clear case of central planning that is always chock full of unintended consequences and perverse motives. What is useful, is to encourage US or N Am production and maintain emergency capacity to produce the entire pharmaceutical supply chain for which the US government pays with appropriate tax incentives and subsidies to keep unused capacity maintained when not in use due to higher costs than foreign supplies. Alternately, a substantial tariff on all the pharmaceutical supply chain outside NAFTA should also do the trick, but would have significant costs to the public. What is definitely needed is regulatory relief from the FDA and EPA and local jurisdictions so that these plants can actually be built and operated without becoming a pin cushion for regulatory pricks, or proudly used as a revenue source by the fine and fee machine.   Much of the intermediary precursors do not have much of a shelf life so can't be stored for long for any pharma product, and so is the case for much of the pharmaceuticals one might wish to stockpile. So emergency inventories are never going to be enough. 

[BLA + 1,666]

6 hours ago, John Foote said:

True dat!

That said, in terms of testing, closing borders, quarentines, the USA is a laggard, and if we have plan yet, please tell me what it is.

My own city has mostly done it's bit, a successfully flattened curve. Then a bunch over too rich college students who charted a plane to Mexico to party, couldn't get their money back, so they went, and yup, instant surge of positives my a highly socialized group. Mexico has since done us a favor and closed their borders, but what were we thinking allowing folks from in from any country without a mandatory quarantine for two weeks. Heck, my employer put that into policy mid-February. This is not new news.

Is there anyone here would hire Krushner to hire a extremely complicated, scientific problem? You'd laugh the guy off if he showed up on rig, or tried to run a refinery or ID where to drill. 

This is a Manhattan Project, not a real estate development.

Kushner is not even good at Real Estate.  While his father was in prison for tax evasion Jared way overpaid the 666 Fifth Avenue.  It was on the brink of destroying his father's firm. 

After Jared became a senior advisor to President Trump his father did a tour of the Mideast.  Qatar bailed them out. 

I guess if you want to investigate Hunter Biden sweetheart deals you have to investigate Jared also.

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

10 hours ago, Rob Plant said:

No country in the world was ready for this!

pretty much every country has made mistakes in tackling it. Finger pointing and blaming isn’t going to help! What’s the point in retrospectively analysing decisions that may have been wrong or too slow unless you can show other States or countries where you went wrong?

 

South Korea was ready for this. They had a plan in place and they executed it aggressively and successfully. A few other smaller Asian countries did pretty well also. In all cases it was because they screwed up so badly responding to SARS, so they learned the hard way, and that led them to treat their planning and execution seriously. The rest of us only learned the SARS lesson at one remove, so we gradually lost interest in keeping our guard up. In my opinion the biggest US failure was in not following South Korea's lead immediately.

[Rob Plant + 2,647]

1 hour ago, Dan Clemmensen said:

South Korea was ready for this. They had a plan in place and they executed it aggressively and successfully. A few other smaller Asian countries did pretty well also. In all cases it was because they screwed up so badly responding to SARS, so they learned the hard way, and that led them to treat their planning and execution seriously. The rest of us only learned the SARS lesson at one remove, so we gradually lost interest in keeping our guard up. In my opinion the biggest US failure was in not following South Korea's lead immediately.

In fairness Dan that is a good point and I do agree, Sars was a big wake up call for Asia and the rest of the world should’ve followed suit.

i should’ve said no Western country