Which producers will shut in first?

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

16 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

It happens when the last old scrap tanker with a busted engine is towed by some deep-sea tugboat all the way to that loading dock in Saudi Arabia and stuffed with crude, and there is none more to be found, and there are some 3,000 other old hulks filled with oil sitting out there in the Gulf, and no buyers at any price.  Then, I flatly guarantee you, KSA will stop pumping. 

They are not going to do a Saddam Hussein and pump that oil onto the desert sands and set it on fire. 

Thanks. I understand that you mean this as an oversimplified example, but I do not see why the Saudis would use improvised FSOs. I would think that it's cheaper for them in particular to just dial per-well production back. They only need enough total storage to permit them to surge deliveries when they decide to disrupt the market, and their maximum delivery rate is constrained by the number of available operable VLCCs (and other real tankers) and cannot be changed by adding FSOs. Their "storage" is oil left in the ground, and their ability to quickly change their pumping rate has been the underlying enabler of OPEC policy for 50 years. If they wish to crash the price of oil, they will already have succeeded when all non-Saudi storage has been filled due to aggregate global production and demand collapse.

In truth, we are giving the Saudis far too much attention and far too much credit for the price collapse. They are now completely irrelevant, but they keep pretending that their actions caused the collapse. Our best move, and the one they most dread, is to completely ignore them.

Edited April 2, 2020 by Dan Clemmensen
correct spelling errors

[John Foote + 1,135]

4 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

It is my view that the greatest capital the USA has is the older workers, the guys in their 60's and 70's that have been running machines and lathes and horizontal mills for decades and have this huge accumulated store of knowledge.  

I mostly agree. But make no mistake, there is quite a sizeable "younger" group, by that I mean 40-60. NTMS has been relentlessly showing opportunities for quite some time. And a skilled welder, that is a golden ticket if he/she has the right certs. 

If there is a single worst choke point the in shops I work with it's programming. Most of the 60+ folks aren't wizards at the programming side. Solid models make it easier than in the past, but MasterCam and such is no substitute for an ace experience programmer. Now for the fixturing, there is no substitute for that old toolmaker. 

Staffing a shop in hot areas is tough. Shops are embracing working with parole boards for staffing, even seen some homeless hired tbut to date none of those have worked out. Mental health issues drive so much homelessness, and until the country changes the treatment model that problem will sustain. With modern palletized FMSs, and laser tube cutters with embedded active tubing, the productivity per person has exploded. I routinely resource to the US from overseas and save price per unit in some types of work. This is a great time to be in an American fabrication facility.

I suspect the oil and gas centric ones in Texas are about to get poached by the semiconductor and medical machine shops.

It sounds crazy, but I genuinely believe our current COVID 19 shit show is going to provide great opportunities for the nimble. 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

3 minutes ago, John Foote said:

It sounds crazy, but I genuinely believe our current COVID 19 shit show is going to provide great opportunities for the nimble.

Yup, it always does. 

The basic question remains:  how much wealth is being extracted as a result of this massive shut-down?   And does the USA end up looking like Portugal when the dust settles?  

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

President Trump announced a discussion of an agreement in principle among major oil producers to cut global production by 15 million bbl/day, and the markets reacted positively. At least one analyst here on OilPrice thinks that this agreement will not actually happen, and if it does formally occur it will be subject to rampant cheating. In the mean time, the latest (possibly exaggerated) predictions for Covid-19 demand destruction call for it to be longer and worse, reaching a bottom of 30 million bbl/day in mid-June instead of 20 million bbl/day in mid May. Ouch. So the storage fill rate would be maybe 5 million bbl/day wildly-optimistic case and maybe 25 million bbl/day maximum credible case. A chicken-little sky-is-falling prediction, based on forward-projecting the current projections, is maybe 35 million bbl/day in mid-July.

Europe has quit buying Saudi oil as they can no longer use it. Same with India, which declared Force Majeure and has quit accepting crude that was already under contract.

Somebody must stop pumping oil. Actually, a lot of somebodies must stop pumping oil. Furthermore, all of that excess oil in storage (especially in expensive storage like VLCCs) must be sold when demand begins to recover, so pumping cannot ramp up again until this overhang is sold. This means that the period of reduced production will be the same whether production stops now or stops later.

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

2 hours ago, U_P said:

 

Mr Smith,

The news of the tainted oil from SPR came from informal confersations a while back with collegues in the refining business of my company who told me they discussed whether to participate to future sales of the crude released from SPR but were warned by their french contractors who heard horror stories from Total people (who apparently were also very interested in the material). I have no way to doubl check my sources, but no people involved would have any reasons to lie, especially when there has been so much oil to go around the past few years and no terriible competition for any particular load of crude...

So yeah Popular Mechanics is my secret source of info!

Why didn't you just say anonymous sources from the beginning? No problem, if they're good enough for CNN, they're good enough for anyone, right?

I'm not denying someone complained. It literally happens every day. Blenders push right to the gnat's eyelash on specs, and every refinery complains. Not because they can't handle the feedstock, but because they might have paid too much. It's all about the moolah. 

Here's a source That should be acceptable here.

Quote

The U.S. Department of Energy disputes the claims that it has been repeatedly selling crude tainted with dangerous levels of hydrogen sulfide, although it admitted that it had paid some US$1 million to clean up a contaminated cargo for PetroChina, Bloomberg reports. Some of the readings of the companies may have been “spurious” or contamination may have occurred during the shipping of the crude from the SPR to the companies, the Department of Energy told Bloomberg.

Cheers

[BLA + 1,666]

12 hours ago, Gerry Maddoux said:

The CDC stands between you and disaster, day after day. It was not their fault that test reagents were made in China--those were outsourced just like 95% of all the drugs we Americans take (made in China and India). The reason for this was corporate greed. The CDC has been hobbled for some time--politically--with budget cuts and furloughing of top-notch people who used to sit around planning and thinking about the next big Big. The CDC had been warning about coronaviruses for some time. They're playing catch-up now. 

American medicine has become more and more commercialized over the last four decades. It had gotten to the point where the insured were over-tested and over-treated, the uninsured untested and untreated . . . until they presented to some ER in extremis. The system had gotten so monetized that a huge segment of the income of any hospital went into administrators' pockets. Hip, knee and shoulder replacement had become mundane first considerations. There are plenty of heart mills. Medical device companies had gotten by with paying kickbacks to doctors for trying their new products, some of whom injured people. The very people who have bellowed the loudest whenever national health care was brought up were the ones who thought they had a concierge doctor in their hip pocket to help them personally through any crisis. Well, so much for that. 

In short, it is the American health care system that has suffered from rot--not the CDC. Yes, there are plenty of bureaucrats in it and yes they dropped the ball, but they are so little the true face of the problem that your comment would be laughable in ordinary times.

Look, I'm not out to pick on you. 

In these trying times, there's plenty of blame to go around. And not all of it rests with the CDC. Or with shale.

I have to disagree.

CDC dropped the ball, missed the boat or just screwed up.  Call it what you want. 

I didn't blame CDC for lack of reagent. Nice try with your "strawman argument" .    I do blame them for insisting THEY develop the Covid test.  Their test didn't work very well.  They failed when we needed them most.

Don't conflate the greedy pharma and medical device companies with an ineffective CDC whose employees are retired in place waiting to receive their very generous pensions.

The CDC exists for times like these. They got up to the plate and struck out.  

 

Gerry, you question administrations cutting the CDC budget .  .  .  .  .  .  .   

THE CDC ANNUAL BUDGET IS $12 BILLION !  THIS IS WHAT WE GET ? THE U.S. TAXPAYER DESERVES BETTER !

The CDC had to prepare for SARS, H1N1 , MERS, etc and they don't have a contingency plan for an all out respiratory pandemic in the file cabinet. What infectious disease doctor has not heard about the 1918 Spanish Flu ?   What do they do with the $12 Billion.  Seriously, what do they do. 

Edited April 3, 2020 by BLA

[U_P + 22]

3 hours ago, Ward Smith said:

Why didn't you just say anonymous sources from the beginning? No problem, if they're good enough for CNN, they're good enough for anyone, right?

I'm not denying someone complained. It literally happens every day. Blenders push right to the gnat's eyelash on specs, and every refinery complains. Not because they can't handle the feedstock, but because they might have paid too much. It's all about the moolah. 

Here's a source That should be acceptable here.

Cheers

Fair enough so you can categorically exclude the presence/action of sulphur-fixing bacteria in the domes driving hydrocarbon degradation and h2s production?

https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/aapgbull/article-abstract/41/8/1802/34421/Origin-of-Gulf-Coast-Salt-Dome-Sulphur-Deposits1?redirectedFrom=fulltext

It is absolutely manageable, it only needs to be cleaned up before selling, so the oil is usable, it just contains more sulphur than when it was injected, that's all.

Edited April 2, 2020 by U_P

[Gerry Maddoux + 3,627]

25 minutes ago, BLA said:

Gerry, you question administrations cutting the CDC budget .  .  .  .  .  .  .   

THE CDC ANNUAL BUDGET IS $12 BILLION !  THIS IS WHAT WE GET ? THE U.S. TAXPAYER DESERVES BETTER !

Okay, the CDC has been holding one-half of the world's supply of smallpox since we divvied it up with the old USSR during the most frigid part of the Cold War. Almost nobody is immune to smallpox. Want to know what's worse than Covid-19? Smallpox. The CDC has done a pretty good job of husbandry there. And that's just one example. 

I'm not sure how to respond to you. For some reason you and Ward seem to think you're experts on the CDC. Have you ever been down there? The labs with "employees retired in place" are working with Ebola, Marburg virus, malaria, salmonella, schistosomiasis--the worst of the worst. They don't take it lightly. 

The administration didn't just cut the budget, it also cut out the first response team that plans on how to handle these sorts of crises. There was no first response team when Covid-19 got loose. My good friend used to be head of it, under both Clinton and then, as head of the bioterrorism section under George W's newly minted Homeland Security post-911. That team has been like a light switch: on for SARS, off, on for Ebola, off. I would bet it goes on for good now. But just to emphasize the point, it's pretty hard for a first response team to map out a strategy when the first response team no longer exists in any manner whatsoever. 

You want to blame the government? Then go see when Obama ended it, then brought it back for Ebola. Then, just to play fair and nonpartisan, look at the exact point when President Trump decided--like an early President Obama before him--that it was a disposable team. That team used to model terrorist threats where smallpox from Vector (in Siberia, where the other one-half of the smallpox collection landed) might be sprayed over NFL stadiums, or whether it was feasible to leave a dirty bomb in a NYC subway.

It's very easy to be a Monday morning quarterback--I used to do it every Monday back when we still had teams playing each other. If you're the CDC working with thousands of dangerous organisms all the way from prions to fungi, and have to keep one eye peeled for a virus that might wing its way from a Wuhan wet market (or even the Level 4 lab nearby), and you have to do that without a first response team, using a test kit and reagents that were made in China (because it's a government piece with a mandate to have it "bid out" by an American company), this is pretty much what you get. 

I'm out of juice. I worked with bad viruses for three years, but way back in the sixties. Then my work in medicine took me well away from viruses. But throughout the years I have never lost respect for what these people did--that's the only reason I'm bothering to comment on this. What we're all witnessing now is pretty much what you get when you politically mess with a team that was put together to make sure this sort of thing doesn't happen. i was even reluctant to mention it because I don't want Joe Biden to weaponize this . . . though I'm pretty sure it's already in his addled old wheelhouse.

[canadas canadas + 136]

On 3/30/2020 at 9:11 AM, cloudslicer said:

Why couldn't we just isolate ourselves from the global oil and gas market and go 100% domestic for our energy consumption? Oil and Gas would rise to balance between supply and demand and we would be free of Russian oil dumping.

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/normalize-us-energy-prices-save-domestic-energy-industry

Or if anyone else has a better idea I'm open to it. It seams that global energy market is too manipulated by hostile parties who are driven by political agendas. Although to some extent this has always been the case, but this time around it suicidal. I think if the US where to self embargo we would save our shale oil industry.

It is neoliberal economic policies over the last few decades that has led to cheaper imports being favored over local domestic production in many industries.

[BLA + 1,666]

3 hours ago, canadas canadas said:

It is neoliberal economic policies over the last few decades that has led to cheaper imports being favored over local domestic production in many industries.

 

3 hours ago, canadas canadas said:

It is neoliberal economic policies over the last few decades that has led to cheaper imports being favored over local domestic production in many industries.

I believe cheaper production is not the main reason for outsourcing mfg.

It may have been in the beginning but not #1 now. 

It's the avoidence of U.S. corporate income taxes. That adds big dollars to your bottom line. 

Until the international tax laws are changed or U.S. puts a tariff on imports it won't change. 

Companies like Apple do not pay any U.S. corporate income tax. 

Major oil firms also. Plus most others.  

Pharmaceutical companies don't pay any corporate U.S. income taxes.

You're going to have to legislate Pharma to return mfg to the U.S.   They will not do it out of the goodness of their heart. 

Edited April 3, 2020 by BLA

[BLA + 1,666]

35 minutes ago, Gerry Maddoux said:

Okay, the CDC has been holding one-half of the world's supply of smallpox since we divvied it up with the old USSR during the most frigid part of the Cold War. Almost nobody is immune to smallpox. Want to know what's worse than Covid-19? Smallpox. The CDC has done a pretty good job of husbandry there. And that's just one example. 

I'm not sure how to respond to you. For some reason you and Ward seem to think you're experts on the CDC. Have you ever been down there? The labs with "employees retired in place" are working with Ebola, Marburg virus, malaria, salmonella, schistosomiasis--the worst of the worst. They don't take it lightly. 

The administration didn't just cut the budget, it also cut out the first response team that plans on how to handle these sorts of crises. There was no first response team when Covid-19 got loose. My good friend used to be head of it, under both Clinton and then, as head of the bioterrorism section under George W's newly minted Homeland Security post-911. That team has been like a light switch: on for SARS, off, on for Ebola, off. I would bet it goes on for good now. But just to emphasize the point, it's pretty hard for a first response team to map out a strategy when the first response team no longer exists in any manner whatsoever. 

You want to blame the government? Then go see when Obama ended it, then brought it back for Ebola. Then, just to play fair and nonpartisan, look at the exact point when President Trump decided--like an early President Obama before him--that it was a disposable team. That team used to model terrorist threats where smallpox from Vector (in Siberia, where the other one-half of the smallpox collection landed) might be sprayed over NFL stadiums, or whether it was feasible to leave a dirty bomb in a NYC subway.

It's very easy to be a Monday morning quarterback--I used to do it every Monday back when we still had teams playing each other. If you're the CDC working with thousands of dangerous organisms all the way from prions to fungi, and have to keep one eye peeled for a virus that might wing its way from a Wuhan wet market (or even the Level 4 lab nearby), and you have to do that without a first response team, using a test kit and reagents that were made in China (because it's a government piece with a mandate to have it "bid out" by an American company), this is pretty much what you get. 

I'm out of juice. I worked with bad viruses for three years, but way back in the sixties. Then my work in medicine took me well away from viruses. But throughout the years I have never lost respect for what these people did--that's the only reason I'm bothering to comment on this. What we're all witnessing now is pretty much what you get when you politically mess with a team that was put together to make sure this sort of thing doesn't happen. i was even reluctant to mention it because I don't want Joe Biden to weaponize this . . . though I'm pretty sure it's already in his addled old wheelhouse.

Well , a lot of good points.  But . . . . . 

I understand the terrorist threats , smallpox etc.  Even if administrations cut certain aspects of CDC.  You would think CDC scientist could model an inventory of required medical supplies and equipment required in an event we see a pandemic such as this.  

After all $12 Billion each year should buy you that.  

Sometimes people get to comfortable and used to the status quo.  Sometimes you need to shake things up.  

Enough about this.  Let's hope we learn something from this experience instead of using it as a political weapon to bloodgen  each other with. 

You know it will become political. 

Everything is turned into a political battle.

 

Edited April 2, 2020 by BLA

[Gerry Maddoux + 3,627]

15 minutes ago, BLA said:

After all $12 Billion each year should buy you that.  

Twelve billion doesn't buy you a damn thing . . . . if the first response team supposed to be watching out for this was cut out of the budget by the president. Don't you get it? The damn thing didn't exist. Arguably the most important position in the CDC was eliminated! Gone! 

People didn't get too comfortable with anything . . . they all worried about it . . . but like the crew running a well, you kind of have to believe you've got a mud engineer. So, if the CEO at Exxon fires the mud engineer on a twelve-hole pad, does the man who's doing the geo-steering order up the mud long-distance? No? Oh gosh, I guess the poor bastard got too comfortable. 

I gave you too much credit: You're not sixteen. You're an embryo, trying to act like you know something. What a goddamn joke, trying to have a discussion with you. Plus, you clearly skipped compositional English class. My suggestion? Take a class on deductive reasoning; every junior college has them online. Then a remedial writing class. Then, once you're all loaded up, cut loose--man, you've got so much to offer I wouldn't want you to deprive the intellectual world of your smarts.

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

1 hour ago, canadas canadas said:

It is neoliberal economic policies over the last few decades that has led to cheaper imports being favored over local domestic production in many industries.

I'm not sure what you mean by "neoliberal" here. This is free market economics in its purest form, as libertarian as you can possibly get, right out Adam Smith in the eighteenth century. You don't get to "neoliberal" until John Maynard Keynes in about 1930.

[John Foote + 1,135]

1 hour ago, BLA said:

Everything is turned into a political battle.

That is because John/Jane Q Public reward it in their voting. 

The great risk and failing of elected representation is an ignorant electorate. Still a better system than the genetic lottery of monarchs or other forms of totalitarian states and governments.

 

[BLA + 1,666]

6 hours ago, Gerry Maddoux said:

Twelve billion doesn't buy you a damn thing . . . . if the first response team supposed to be watching out for this was cut out of the budget by the president. Don't you get it? The damn thing didn't exist. Arguably the most important position in the CDC was eliminated! Gone! 

People didn't get too comfortable with anything . . . they all worried about it . . . but like the crew running a well, you kind of have to believe you've got a mud engineer. So, if the CEO at Exxon fires the mud engineer on a twelve-hole pad, does the man who's doing the geo-steering order up the mud long-distance? No? Oh gosh, I guess the poor bastard got too comfortable. 

I gave you too much credit: You're not sixteen. You're an embryo, trying to act like you know something. What a goddamn joke, trying to have a discussion with you. Plus, you clearly skipped compositional English class. My suggestion? Take a class on deductive reasoning; every junior college has them online. Then a remedial writing class. Then, once you're all loaded up, cut loose--man, you've got so much to offer I wouldn't want you to deprive the intellectual world of your smarts.

Please . . .   $12 billion each year.  The CDC exist to protect us..  Sorry if your friend that works for CDC is offended. 

(1) They insisted that they develop the test kit.  They failed.  Take responsibility. (2)  Not only that, they insisted they do the testing at the CDC.  THE CDC RAMPED UP TO A WHOPPING 60 TESTS A DAY ! ! ! YIPPY ! THEY SAVED THE WORLD. 

The U.S. lost 3 to 4 four critical  weeks screwing around with the CDC, pampering their egos. 

I guess you are correct ,"$12 Billion doesn't buy you a damn thing" if you are the CDC.

You say, "They all worried about it ?" What ? So why not allocate an itsy bitsy little part that $12 Billion and model medical and pharma needs.  Good Lord. Dose someone have to tell them to do that ?  I GUESS THAT WOULD COST ANOTHER $12 BILLION AND 4 YEARS TO HIGHER A PHD TO WRITE A REPORT.  GOOD WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT.

________________________________

YOU POST : 

" I gave you too much credit: You're not sixteen. You're an embryo, trying to act like you know something. What a goddamn joke, trying to have a discussion with you. Plus, you clearly skipped compositional English class. My suggestion? Take a class on deductive reasoning; every junior college has them online. Then a remedial writing class. Then, once you're all loaded up, cut loose--man, you've got so much to offer I wouldn't want you to deprive the intellectual world of your smarts."

Amusing , I got a good laugh out of it. I hope it made you feel better. 

Gerry, as for my composition I am a product of the "texting generation" , that's 140 characters or less .  Just trying to make some bullet points, an information dump, an opinion dump, just the facts sort and sweet. There for anyone to take it or leave it. I don't proof read my posts nor care about spelling.   If you care then just don't read them. 

You have some valuable knowledge to share and are an excellent writer (becoming a lost art) and I am a better person for it.  Thank you.

I could return the insults and then some, but why bother.  That does not benefit anyone. I don't get anything out of putting people down .  .  .  . unless it's the butcher MBS, Putin or Xi Jinping.

Let me ask you .  .  .  How much money have you made or lost  investing or trading in the oil industry the past 10 years.  Let's compare ledgers.

This forum is getting old.  It's all yours.  Best of luck .  .  .  really.

 

Edited April 3, 2020 by BLA

[0R0 + 6,251]

1 hour ago, Rasmus Jorgensen said:

It is true that this situation is more or less unprecedentet. However, we also came from a peak. It is frigthening to me how many businesses small and large that need help after a few weeks of downturn. 

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.

[Gerry Maddoux + 3,627]

23 minutes ago, BLA said:

Sorry if your friend that works for CDC is offended. 

My friend isn't offended at all; his job was eliminated; the team was disbanded. I'm sure if he'd been allowed to do his job and this had gotten past him he'd be pretty offended.  

 

33 minutes ago, BLA said:

They insisted that they develop the test kit.  They failed.  Take responsibility.  

They insisted because the test kit manufacture, along with the reagents, had been mandated to be outsourced to the Chinese, whom the CDC didn't trust any more than they did when they were told the Chinese would be building it. Probably as much as they trusted the medications that Americans take--again 95% made by China (badly) and India (pretty well). This outsourcing was beyond the stretch of the CDC.  

 

34 minutes ago, BLA said:

So allocate an itsy bitsy little part that $12 Billion and model medical and pharma needs. 

How much would you suggest? And how would you model for a virus that hasn't been constructed by nature or attenuated by man? Which "pharma" needs would you model for? Would they be Hydroxychloroquine and Zithromax, which seem to work for this one? If so, that's pretty interesting because there was no subset of patients for a clinical trail. How exactly--tell us please, we're breathless--would you design "pharma needs" around a virus that had not yet been studied or, up until Wuhan, was not known to exist? Since the first response team had been disbanded, what, take a salmonella guy and put his team on developing the "pharma needs" and "model medical" tactics to fight an unknown, unnamed, unformed virus? Really?  

40 minutes ago, BLA said:

My opinion. 

And God, what a naive little opinion it is! Let me ask you, do you have a specialty that you're proficient in? If you do, please, go back to it.

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

2 hours ago, Gerry Maddoux said:

Okay, the CDC has been holding one-half of the world's supply of smallpox since we divvied it up with the old USSR during the most frigid part of the Cold War. Almost nobody is immune to smallpox. Want to know what's worse than Covid-19? Smallpox. The CDC has done a pretty good job of husbandry there. And that's just one example. 

I'm not sure how to respond to you. For some reason you and Ward seem to think you're experts on the CDC. Have you ever been down there? The labs with "employees retired in place" are working with Ebola, Marburg virus, malaria, salmonella, schistosomiasis--the worst of the worst. They don't take it lightly. 

The administration didn't just cut the budget, it also cut out the first response team that plans on how to handle these sorts of crises. There was no first response team when Covid-19 got loose. My good friend used to be head of it, under both Clinton and then, as head of the bioterrorism section under George W's newly minted Homeland Security post-911. That team has been like a light switch: on for SARS, off, on for Ebola, off. I would bet it goes on for good now. But just to emphasize the point, it's pretty hard for a first response team to map out a strategy when the first response team no longer exists in any manner whatsoever. 

You want to blame the government? Then go see when Obama ended it, then brought it back for Ebola. Then, just to play fair and nonpartisan, look at the exact point when President Trump decided--like an early President Obama before him--that it was a disposable team. That team used to model terrorist threats where smallpox from Vector (in Siberia, where the other one-half of the smallpox collection landed) might be sprayed over NFL stadiums, or whether it was feasible to leave a dirty bomb in a NYC subway.

It's very easy to be a Monday morning quarterback--I used to do it every Monday back when we still had teams playing each other. If you're the CDC working with thousands of dangerous organisms all the way from prions to fungi, and have to keep one eye peeled for a virus that might wing its way from a Wuhan wet market (or even the Level 4 lab nearby), and you have to do that without a first response team, using a test kit and reagents that were made in China (because it's a government piece with a mandate to have it "bid out" by an American company), this is pretty much what you get. 

I'm out of juice. I worked with bad viruses for three years, but way back in the sixties. Then my work in medicine took me well away from viruses. But throughout the years I have never lost respect for what these people did--that's the only reason I'm bothering to comment on this. What we're all witnessing now is pretty much what you get when you politically mess with a team that was put together to make sure this sort of thing doesn't happen. i was even reluctant to mention it because I don't want Joe Biden to weaponize this . . . though I'm pretty sure it's already in his addled old wheelhouse.

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've addressed the pandemic response team before. They were producing hundreds of pages of "emergency procedures" that my friend an ER and coordinator for the ER group had to slog through. They had too much time on their hands and not enough urgency to handle an emergency. 

[Rasmus Jorgensen + 1,169]

7 hours ago, 0R0 said:

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.

I guess we agree although come at this from different perspectives. 

I see many businesses that are not well run or well capitalized (particularly in my field of offshore). Frankly, many of these only exist because it has been practically free to borrow. A crisis is supposed to wipe out such businesses. But now, thanks to Corona virus they are being bailed out... Froget about free capitalism or free markets... 

[James Regan + 1,776]

14 minutes ago, Rasmus Jorgensen said:

I guess we agree although come at this from different perspectives. 

I see many businesses that are not well run or well capitalized (particularly in my field of offshore). Frankly, many of these only exist because it has been practically free to borrow. A crisis is supposed to wipe out such businesses. But now, thanks to Corona virus they are being bailed out... Froget about free capitalism or free markets... 

Agreed Rasmus- Free Markets will be redefined....

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

16 hours ago, Ward Smith said:

This is rich, coming from Mr. Popular mechanics

Don’t be slaggin’ Popular Mechanics! Heathen...😂

[U_P + 22]

2 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Don’t be slaggin’ Popular Mechanics! Heathen...😂

I welcome your derogatory remarks Mr Buckland

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

36 minutes ago, U_P said:

I welcome your derogatory remarks Mr Buckland

Just how the heck did you get a derogatory remark from my reply???

Your skin must be as thin as rice paper!

Popular Mechanics is a magazine, not a person.😖

[U_P + 22]

1 minute ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Just how the heck did you get a derogatory remark from my reply???

Your skin must be as thin as rice paper!

Popular Mechanics is a magazine, not a person.😖

Nah I was shitting you! 😂

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

1 minute ago, U_P said:

Nah I was shitting you! 😂

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