Hindsight, Foresight, and Throwing Darts.

Posted on May 13, 2020May 13, 2020 by thependulumswings staff

One unlucky BBR staffer was assigned a project that wound up lasting well into the evening. The loser of the coin flip had to research the states’ stay at home orders, easing of same, and restrictions imposed on both.

The project mercifully was called off around 11:30 pm. Why? It’s because there are nearly 50 different answers from 50 states in place to either stay or not in place.

We wonder.

Have we all put too much trust in elected officials that know next to nothing about viruses blindly throwing darts at a wall?
Have we all put too much trust in many doctors(experts) who are in government positions for too long as the politicians are, somewhat blindly throwing darts at a wall?
We were only supposed to be flattening the curve. Los Angeles County, “with almost certainty,” will extend the stay at home until sometime in July. Does LA (and Oregon) know something that most of the other 48 states do not?
Will someone please inform BBR when, barring a vaccination that all agree to inject, the risk of spreading the virus will go to zero? Or when it will go to a manageable number? What is that manageable number?
Will someone please inform BBR when the “cost” of catching it is outweighed by the cost of not catching it? Georgia and Texas amongst others have said that day has come and gone.
Wasn’t the time to lock down two weeks before we did? Easy to say in hindsight you say? Correct. Yet some called for it loudly and repeatedly back on March 1. But it seems like the time to stop a spread is before it starts spreading. How do you know when? You don’t. So, if you think you are going to need to do it, isn’t sooner better than later?
To those suggesting we should test everyone every time they enter an establishment that “we” think they should get tested we have a question. When does that need to subside? When the virus goes away? When the vaccine arrives? How do you pay for what you just proposed? Isn’t it a violation of one’s rights?
To anyone who says anything is too soon? Is it not your individual decision to do or not do what you wish? Stay home as long as you wish, but the money to take care of everyone has long ago run out. Are you listening, Nancy? Are you listening, Mitch? Are you listening, Donald?
Can anyone let us know when the Federal Reserve printer runs out of ink? BBR’s low ink printer notification is on more than it’s off it seems. That must be one big printer with one very big green ink cartridge.
Why in the world is the stock market going up? Does Wall St. know that we have to go back to work in order to survive?

Hindsight is indeed 2020. We already cannot wait until 2020 is indeed behind us.

Made in America?

Posted on May 11, 2020May 11, 2020 by thependulumswings staff

On June 12, 1987, United States President Ronald Reagan delivered a speech in West Berlin. He was less than 100 yards from the Berlin Wall. Reagan called for the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, to open the Berlin Wall, which had separated West and East Berlin since 1961. “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Though it received relatively little media coverage at the time, it became widely known in 1989 after the fall of the Berlin Wall. There is significant debate as to how much influence if any, the speech had on the wall coming down. But in 1989 down it came as did communist rule and/or occupation in several eastern European countries in addition to the then Soviet Union, now Russia.

There isn’t much debate at all about the influence Donald J. Trump has had in getting a taller and wider wall built on the southern border of the U.S. Over 125 miles are completed and by winter the guess is that nearly 500 miles will be hoisted.

Reagan wanted to unravel Soviet block countries. Trump wants to block illegal immigration. Both walls were or are steeped in controversy and divided opinions.

But the U.S. opinion should not be divided on two other walls. One is The Great Wall of China and the other is the virtual firewall of the world wide web.

As U.S. companies figuratively lept over the Great Wall to take advantage of cheap Chinese labor to make and eager Chinese consumers to, well, consume U.S. products a bad thing happened. We lost sight of right from wrong all because all we could see is the almighty dollar, and lots of them.

Forgetting for a minute of how horrifically the Chinese tyrants treat their people day in and day out, focus on the last 180 days.

China either leaked a virus out of a lab or didn’t. Investigations, in spite of the World Health Organization(WHO), are ongoing. Regardless, does anyone think that the virus didn’t start in China somehow? China is accused of asking the WHO in January to deny that human to human transmission could occur. Further, they restricted travel from the Wuhan Provence to other areas of China but not to the rest of the world as the virus spread rapidly around the globe.

They recently revised the cases and deaths in the country, increasing both totals by an even 50%. Oops, maybe a rounding error was uncovered. Some medial experts put the actual carnage at 5x to 10x their count.

Yesterday news broke that the FBI is now investigating China as it’s feared that they have continued their widespread hacking of virtual walls. Except this time it’s even worse. Now they are trying to hack into pharma company computers to steal the vaccination research being done on the very virus that they let out of the lab or the soup.

Like him or hate him(and apparently there is no in-between), Trump has been telling us over and over again that China manipulates their currency, profits unfairly on trade deals, and conducts cyber-attack after attack.

Perhaps it’s time we listen closely, learn fast, and plan accordingly.

We’re in far too deep with a country that is doing everything that others did that we hated just 30 years ago. Somehow we chose to close our eyes.

What are we going to do about it? And, when? Soon isn’t soon enough.

“Made in America” sounds good. “Not made in China” sounds essential.