Posted on 03/20/2020 7:06:25 AM PDT by Kaslin
Precedent doesn't provide much guidance. There's a deadly coronavirus threatening to circulate through the population. The resulting government orders and social sanctions of self-distancing and self-isolating behavior are unprecedented in living memory.
Operating without guiding precedents casts into doubt many longstanding practices and assumptions.
First, as the Hoover Institution's Michael Auslin writes in RealClearPolitics, "After dealing with the first great global crisis of the 21st century, the world must fundamentally rethink its dependence on China."
Americans are suddenly realizing they depend on China for health care products from face masks to pharmaceutical medicines, including nearly half our penicillin and nearly all our ibuprofen.
Veteran China watchers have noticed that China's economic growth has slowed down; its working-age population is peaking (thanks, one-child policy!); and its legal system and statistics remain unreliable. Now almost everyone is noticing, in Auslin's words, "China's lax public health care, incompetent and intrusive government, and generally less developed domestic conditions."
A turning point for China means a turning point for globalism. For 40 years, American leaders of both parties have assumed that cheap Chinese-produced consumer and manufactured goods are a bargain. COVID-19 strengthens the arguments of Trump Republicans and protectionist Democrats that these products actually cost too much.
Global supply chains, which seemed primed to reduce costs forever, now seem to have the potential to increase costs exponentially. Governments and business firms seem likely to conclude that it makes more sense to buy things made closer to home.
Consumers may feel that way, too. Destination weddings, often requiring thousands of dollars to attend, may become sharply less common. Los Angeles suburbanites may skip a father-son ski trip to the Italian Dolomites and just drive four-plus hours to Mammoth Mountain instead.
Are we seeing a turning point in public policy as well? Blogger Mickey Kaus notes that President Donald Trump, in his (at last) impressive presentations, has called on big business leaders to help lead recovery efforts. For all the rhetoric obeisance to small businesses, this is reminiscent of how big business mobilized the nation in World War II.
That happened because former President Franklin Roosevelt knew from firsthand experience in World War I that then-President Woodrow Wilson's seizure of railroads and shipyards didn't work very well. To maximize production to destroy Hitler, Roosevelt calculated, government needed to enlist the guys who knew how to get things done.
The danger here is crony capitalism, a mostly unavoidable feature of our defense procurement systems ever since. And big business units, coddled by government, aren't usually good at innovation or efficiency. But we seem to be relying on them more anyhow.
And are we headed for more (any?) bipartisan cooperation on policy? Maybe. Donald Trump's admitting his harshness on the press and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's heartfelt praise of the Trump administration's efforts both point in that direction.
We may also see a turning point in a willingness to ditch, for the moment or permanently, bureaucratic and environmental rules and procedures that delay or impede actions, such as the January Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Food and Drug Administration rulings that effectively blocked coronavirus testing.
COVID-19 hasn't -- yet -- been a turning point in the election process. The one turning point in the presidential race came Feb. 26, when South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn endorsed Joe Biden. The previously lagging Biden essentially clinched the Democratic nomination on Super Tuesday six days later.
Bernie Sanders, vote leader in Iowa, New Hampshire and California, trudges on but, barring a Biden collapse, to no apparent purpose. This raises a further question: Is there any reason to hold the two national conventions at all?
Sure, there's something to say for historic continuity -- Democrats have been meeting every four years since 1832, and Republicans have been since 1856. Personally, I'd like to stretch my record of having attended, in one shape or form, 24 of the 88 national conventions ever held.
But national conventions have long since lost their role as the unique communications medium through which politicians can palaver frankly. That communication has filled the air around us 24/7 for months. Legal requirements could be fulfilled by a virtual convention conducted electronically. We'd avoid exposing 77- and 73-year-old nominees to thousands of potential infectors.
Any turning point in our stubbornly persistent partisan patterns? I don't see one yet in the smattering of polls taken this month. Trump still trails Biden, and feelings about the direction of the nation are slightly less downbeat than those during most of the Obama years. But we're sailing in unprecedented waters.
Deadly virus for some. For most it is a five-day bout with some nasty symptoms. Then you recover.
Not a walk in the park for sure and if millions of people contract nasty flu-like symptoms the health care system will be overwhelmed for a while.
I’m skeptical about the shutdown
and if we are still in national lockdown mode in 4 weeks or so and the virus has not exploded I will become more skeptical with the impression that our economy is under attack from inside.
BTW, in the Bay Area golf courses are closed but pot clubs are open.
If this crap aint over soon: The resulting population’s self-DEFENSE behavior will be unprecedented in living memory.
The problem will be in finding the optimum point between free trade and autarchy for each product, lower prices vs dependence on imported goods. Forcing all stuff to be made here will lead to the kinds of quality and price problems we had before Japanese cars were imported.
Kung Flu is survivable for most.
Minimizing exposure for anyone will be the ticket.
I believe that 6 weeks from now we will be on the brighter side of this.
It’s not projected or expected to be over soon.
The US has a plan to deal with this the next 18 months.
It will not be “over” until there’s a vaccine and that vaccine has been through all testing (12-18 months) and is in mass production and widely available.
This isn’t going to be able to last long. People are starting to go crazy.
I know a guy who works at a grocery store. They’ve had to call the cops 4 times in the last two days because of fights between customers who are panic-stricken. Another lady was going nuts throwing stuff off the shelves and at people.
The government imposed shutdowns will crash the economy. Now, we hearing about the closures. Over the next three weeks, we’ll hear about the record number of unemployment claims filed. Over the next month, we’ll hear about the unemployed, AND no longer insured, people catching the virus. The stock market will react to the parade of bad news.
That’s not a plan. That’s suicide.
The economy is not going to last through 18 months of shutdown. The supply chains are going to break down.
You already got brawls and people panicking.
Not necessarily. The two malaria drugs (chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine) apparently have a protective as well as curative effect. A vaccine would be "the best" solution, but a temporary alternative appears to be available.
And you can bet that testing will NOT take 12-18 months. The various existing and future "declarations of emergency" will assure that.
These viruses don’t last 18 months, they just don’t. They run out of hosts...it’s math they can’t escape from. Has there been an overreaction?...absolutely by craven politicians and profiteers who vibrate so low they are below being evil. I think within 2 weeks the public outcry for re-opening businesses will be too much. We are about maybe to make a Hobson’s Choice and get a little Darwinian about things. You are old and sick...well you may very well get sick and die.
Soon know
If virus adapts to quinine drugs and becomes resistant we could face a larger problem
Development of resistance takes time, which time will be used to develop a working vaccine. ANY drug/disease couple is a continuing battle between infectious agent evolution and human ingenuity.
An article with lots of silver linings on this dark cloud.
Barone is not sailing in unprecedented waters. He’s still chugging alone in beltway conventional wisdom.
I figure 2 months before new get over the hump, and 2 more months before things start to turn around.
Golf courses are open in Los Angeles.
Would developing factories than can run profitably with one or two shifts with the built-in capacity to ramp up in times of need help address this issue? In normal times you mix supply with both domestically produced and imported items. Then when need be you go with all made in the USA.
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