Guys-
This Coronavirus situation gets crazier by the day. Last time I wrote to you about it, 17 days ago, we didn’t know the extent of how bad it was going to get. We’ve got it bad. When I wrote to you last time, the USA had 3,124 cases. As of today, we have 233,785. That’s exponential work. It’s possible, when all is said and done, the USA has handled it poorer than any other country in the world. Certainly top 10 worst reactions. Spain, Italy and Iran were very poor also.
Our leaders – largely because of the choice of self over collective – have handled the situation poorly. Make no mistake, had the response been science based instead of gut feel and economy based, we would have fared significantly better. I wrote on facebook the other day:
Wuhan airport closed 1/24. Wuhan already had crazy images coming out of it by then. I remember googling it, figuring out that Wuhan’s airport did about same level of travel as BWI. That told me two things: 1.) that shit had already gotten out of Wuhan and 2.) this was a massive deal. Imagine if they shut down BWI. I bought my first shorts in stock market 1/27. That was all just in the news, I had no special knowledge. Imagine if you had specific intelligence – the amount of “them, not me” thinking to ignore it is mind blowing. Then, for six weeks after that it was deny and deflect while the sought a narrative that worked. The virus made its own narrative, just as the scientists always told Trump it would. Trump literally cost tens of thousands of lives and at least $7 trillion of dollar debasement. Three weeks ago yesterday he’d just finished two consecutive days on the golf course. -3/30
Subsequently, someone asked a good question, in response to my criticism of Trump and my suggestion that I wanted to know if he felt bad. They asked, in essence, what was the point in asking/what did it matter. I responded:
Truth, to the extent I can get it, always makes me feel better.I need to hear, “This has always been about my re-election possibilities, and I make those decisions at any given time from my gut, and look how far it’s gotten me. I was only wrong by a month. I can’t believe that it is going to cost tens of thousands of lives, vast sickness, and trillions of dollars worth of dollar debasement. And by the way, they did tell me this was possible, but they only said possible. Well, a bunch of the nerdier ones said probable. A few super geeks said definitely. But I’m a positive person. And so I listened to my positive self. The people who said my narcissism might really matter someday—they were right. It did.” -3/31
Comments on this entry are closed.