Tuesday, March 17, 2020

Still clueless

I find it hard to believe, but Catallaxy is still running posts from Currency Lad relaying American conservative scepticism that Covid-19 is a really serious issue. 

Ironically, CL, who likes to remind us that he is a smoker (it was a thing 1950's men did, so of course he does), is by virtue of that a person more likely to be at risk of serious consequences if he catches it.

Clearly, until they know a few prominent Right wing figures who get really ill from it, they just won't believe it's a problem.   Italy doesn't convince them.   Of course, other Europeans shutting down to slow its spread just makes them think it's another European socialist plot.

They are - it is impossible to repeat this often enough to match the reality - really stupid.

Update:   This is what the Right is really getting hyped about - that Covid-19 means the West is suddenly going to say "hey, we're going to pull out of getting stuff made in China, because - Communists did this".   Again, the dumb arse of CL:
Australia is a country with fresh air to spare and if we want ourselves and future generations to go on breathing it, we have to learn from this crisis. We have to stop wasting billions on the ‘climate change’ hoax and comparably idiotic extravagances of the phony moral kind and man up. By which I mean, tool up. China has been indulged as a clumsy but incrementally improving boofhead for too long. It is, in fact, a state founded on communist terrorism, built on mass murder and dedicated to global chaos. We have re-build industries and economies that quarantine us from the party (not the people). Not absolutely. Autarky works for a ‘flu-stricken person in self-isolation but not for a country. But we have to do better than this. If we’re on a war footing, let’s fight to win.
Yet, the Communists seem to have shut down their viral problem pretty effectively.  It's the Freedom loving Trumpkins who had trouble coming to grips with it.

8 comments:

Not Trampis said...

stupid is as stupid does

Not Trampis said...

Trumpkins are not freedom loving at all. Just witness how much they applaud Trump's various authoritarian tendencies.

GMB said...

Heavy Metal Don't Mean Rock And Roll To Me .... as Johnny Cash says. My attempt to put that in bold failed. Heavy Metal means a productive Australia.

GMB said...

Yeah he's a bit hard on China and not hard enough on the Western Deep State. But his basic message is right. We have to tool up. Piece-Up. Retool. To Retool the corporate tax rate should be 50% but with same year deduction for equipment purchases and any kind of refurbishment. More correctly they should be able to depreciate gear in the time of their choosing.

i'd go further and from here on in no tax deductibility for new loans that aren't refinancing on a lower interest rate. The logic is that they need to invest in real stuff. Not franked dividends. Not real estate investments. Not bigger salaries or bonuses. We don't want them to spend on takeovers. None of that Shiite. They need to invest in heavy metal. New producer goods. They need to do it and sell off what they can to finance it and they need to have the best and the most tools.

For the sole trader its got to be no taxes on retained earnings. That way the whole country tools up together.

Not Trampis said...

I understand Chines people with a straight face blaming the virus on the US planting it there. But not US pollies blaming the Chinese

GMB said...

Yeah thats my view too Homer. Of course they are going to choose a place just across the river from a lab. Thats the Deep States idea of deep cover. If you want to know who is to blame its always going to be the first guy out with the vaccine. That ought to always be the chief suspect and obviously so. Its not exactly rocket science.

GMB said...

Usually I'm kind of understanding of their negative attitude towards China. Afterall China is big with organ donations. Organ donation and slaughter go hand in hand. And they aren't nice to their Uigar population. Thats a slow genocide right there.

But today Catallaxy may be going a bit too far with their anti-China hysteria even for me. Is it possible that they may be accusing the Chinese of buying up all our toilet paper and shipping it over there? Is there anything behind this? I mean I'm not simply going to assume it cannot be happening. But do we see (for example) student age Chinese boys filling up the trolleys with toilet paper? If you've seen it we ought to know about it. I've still got 40 rolls left, all bought at half price.

John said...

Did the people at the Cat highlight Trump's outright lying ....

https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/world-economy/donald-trump-announces-massive-coronavirus-package/news-story/6c7a5e33fb842d9c05d1601e6427a564

Mr Trump also flagged plans to provide cash payments to Americans to help them through the crisis, and said he was considering other forms of stimulus.

“I’ve always known this is a, this is a real, this is a pandemic,” Mr Trump said today.

“I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.

“All you had to do was look at other countries, I think now it’s in almost 120 countries all over the world.

“I’ve always viewed it as serious.”

His past statements tell a rather different story.
...

“No, not at all,” Mr Trump said.

“We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”

A month later, on February 26, he was asked about the number of coronavirus cases in the United States.

“We’re going down, not up. We’re going very substantially down, not up,” he said.

“Within a couple of days it’s going to be down to close to zero.”

Mr Trump repeatedly suggested a vaccine would be available “soon”, despite the experts’ predictions it could take as long as 18 months.

He labelled criticism of his administration’s response – including a dramatic shortage of test kits – the “new Democratic hoax”.

He speculated, without evidence, that warmer weather from April onwards would eradicate the virus.

As recently as March 15 – three days ago – he said the virus was “something we have tremendous control over”.