A major lesson in all this is to not look to any government as the solution.
Posted on 05/09/2020 3:36:37 PM PDT by daniel1212
It was Jan. 22, a day after the first case of covid-19 was detected in the United States, and orders were pouring into Michael Bowen’s company outside Fort Worth, some from as far away as Hong Kong.
Bowen’s medical supply company, Prestige Ameritech, could ramp up production to make an additional 1.7 million N95 masks a week. He viewed the shrinking domestic production of medical masks as a national security issue, though, and he wanted to give the federal government first dibs.
“We still have four like-new N95 manufacturing lines,” Bowen wrote that day in an email to top administrators in the Department of Health and Human Services. “Reactivating these machines would be very difficult and very expensive but could be achieved in a dire situation.”
But communications over several days with senior agency officials..left Bowen with the clear impression that there was little immediate interest in his offer...
Bowen persisted. “We are the last major domestic mask company,” he wrote on Jan. 23. “My phones are ringing now, so I don’t ‘need’ government business. I’m just letting you know that I can help you preserve our infrastructure if things ever get really bad. I’m a patriot first, businessman second.”
In the end, the government did not take Bowen up on his offer. Even today, production lines that could be making more than 7 million masks a month sit dormant.
White House economic adviser and coronavirus task force member Peter Navarro said: “The company was just extremely difficult to work and communicate with. This was in sharp contrast to groups like the National Council of Textile Organizations and companies like Honeywell and Parkdale Mills which have helped America very rapidly build up cost effective domestic mask capacity measuring in the hundreds of millions”
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Note that Bowen’s overture was described briefly in an 89-page whistleblower complaint filed this week by Rick Bright, former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority.
So, if following lame stream thought process, if PDJT wasn’t going to profit then the offer would be tossed aside. Is that about right?
In the end, the government did not take Bowen up on his offer. Even today, production lines that could be making more than 7 million masks a month sit dormant.
This doesn't make any sense. He's getting tons of orders. His phones are ringing off the hook, but he wants to give the government first dibs. The government declines, and production lines sit dormant.
What happened to those tons of orders that left his phone ringing off the hook?
Yet even if they federal government didn't buy any, 50 states and many foreign governments would have bought them. So why didn't they start making them? This has a bad smell to it.
Fake news over nothing.
Nobody is under any obligation to place an order for anything with any one particular company.
Companies like MyPillow.com were far easier to work with on face masks.
If I read the articles about 3M and Honeywell...they have the capability to produce 400-800 million masks.
this guys company, while good for him for trying could only produce 1.7M
He was just blown off because his numbers were in the weeds compared to what was needed.
The amount of paperwork and effort on the part of HHS to procure those 1.7M could probably be used better to procure 10 or 20 times that many from another manufacturer.
Now....what somebody smart should have done is found 15 or 20 of these kinds of companies and convinced them all to form a co-op of sorts...then they would have had the oomph to get noticed....and the smart guy putting it together could skim off a few % off the top!!!
What I was thinking.
If the government would not buy he appears to have been able to make a ton of money off the private sector.
Gotta’ throw the BS flag on this one.
What’s the point of this now..people have masks, people are wearing masks, yet 1,000 new cases here in LA County..I see people everyday walking around here, no one wears the mask, even though they are required to, so this entire BS “Whistleblower” complaint is idiotic
Peter Navarro is a big government bureaucrat type. He is our bureaucrat. No doubt both he and the HHS/CMS that was approached first expected potential contractors to act in the proscribed bureaucratic way.
You’d be surprised how often a bureaucracy (especially a government bureaucracy) makes the wrong decision solely because it involved people who acted like Gen Patton or Lee Marvin or Clint Eastwood and not the approved bureaucratic way.
Either the lines were activated to meet the outside demand and since have been shutdown, or they were not needed to meet the demand, while that they are not providing masks now is it is irrelevant now since the US apparently has enough. However, if the story is true, that the US went to outside suppliers vs. domestic is sad.
Related:
A Million N95 Masks Are Coming From China—on Board the ... https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-million-n95-masks-are-coming-from-chinaon-board-the-new-england-patriots-plane-11585821600 Apr 2, 2020 - New England Patriots' Plane Flies 1.2 Million Masks from China to U.S.. The Massachusetts governor struck a deal for N95 masks from China, .
Traders Seek China's Masks to Help U.S. Hospitals Battle the ... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/01/business/coronavirus-china-masks.html Apr 1, 2020 - Wholesale costs for N95 respirators, a crucial type of mask for ... The Chinese government has encouraged global deals, but buying and selling ...
nymag.com › intelligencer › 2020/03 › distributors-are-ra... Distributors Are Racing To Import N95 Masks From China Mar 18, 2020 - Kamalapuram hopes officials in the United States and China can ... “The Malaysian government went into lockdown last night and most of the ...
F.D.A. Bans 65 N-95 Style Face Mask Manufacturers - The ... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/07/health/masks-banned-n95-coronavirus.html 2 days ago - N95 masks, many of which are also produced in China, provide ... where they ended up and whether the U.S. government was tracking that
Yep, I think he was hoping the Feds would pay 3x-4x normal prices for N95 masks with a hefty multi-million $$ contract.
Public demand for them is thru the roof right now...and still he leaves his production lines dormant? “Something rotten in the state of TX/Denmark”.
A careful reader. I questioned and posted on that also, before I read your post.
“”””Michael Bowen’s company outside Fort Worth, some from as far away as Hong Kong. Bowen’s medical supply company, Prestige Ameritech,””””
We need to do some background checks on Michael Bowen and Prestige Ameritech.
1. Does he have a political contribution history?
2. Where are photos of his facility?
3. How many employees?
4. What has been his annual revenue?
Others probably have more things that need to be looked into.
A major lesson in all this is to not look to any government as the solution.
Well, didn’t take long for you to destroy the guy’s narrative...
“””“Reactivating these machines would be very difficult and very expensive but could be achieved in a dire situation.” “””
Another money quote from Wash Pooh. Hey guys send me a gazillion dollars and I will make masks for you. Bowen sounds like Obama’s Solyndra.
Yes, the story’s out of Texas too so just like the Dar Rather forgery scandal, it has an Anne Richards fan club vibe to it.
This was when Fauci claimed everything was fine. No need to panic
This is the narrative folks. Trump failed the USA in pandemic. Trump is at fault for the economy tanking. Its the economy stupid all over again.
I wonder if this was the same dude I heard on the radio early on? He claimed to be the only USA manufacturer. Said that during other outbreak, he ramped up production-borrowed money to expand based on promises from clients that they would continue ordering from him, and not go back to cheaper off-shore producers.
However, when it was all over, they did not continue, and he had to down-size/lay people off-nearly lost the company etc. and he just could not risk that again. Said he was at capacity and just had to tell people no in order to serve his existing customers. He broke down and cried.
Not sure I bought what he was selling. At any rate, lots of research on this dude is needed.
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