I think every Western country can function without imports from China. People will just have to buy clothes/electronic gadgets/other non-essential stuff less often. Might actually be a very good thing in the long term for those countries and for the environment, but obviously extremely bad for China’s economy.
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I agree with the rest of your post but hard to stop something that goes ‘viral’ in these days of international travel, of which the US consumer is one of the largest.
How would the US prevent such a worldwide outbreak if noted on US mainland? (assuming you guys could identify and admit to such an outbreak?) Not stanning for China here as source of outbreak not proven yet but WH had weeks / months of advance warning that shit was going down.
Went for a walk outside today for the first time in 7 weeks. Beautiful weather in the 70s, so quite a few other people were out. I’d say more than 80% were wearing masks covering mouth and nose. Some just had masks dangling around their neck or off of one ear. What is the point of that? And then of course there were some people YOLOing it with no mask at all.
I am not worried about clothes or electronics. I was thinking about for example rare earths. Isn’t one of the problems with ramping about COVID testing that China is producing a necessary reagent?
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I have no idea, but presumably that would mean another country with the rare earth metals would step in.
Like many Americans, I’m having politics fatigue. Or, to be more specific, arguing-about-politics fatigue.
I haven’t run out of salient points or evidence for my political perspective, but there is a particular stumbling block I keep running into when trying to reach across the proverbial aisle and have those “difficult conversations” so smugly suggested by think piece after think piece:
I don’t know how to explain to someone why they should care about other people.
Personally, I’m happy to pay an extra 4.3 percent for my fast food burger if it means the person making it for me can afford to feed their own family. If you aren’t willing to fork over an extra 17 cents for a Big Mac, you’re a fundamentally different person than I am.
I’m perfectly content to pay taxes that go toward public schools, even though I’m childless and intend to stay that way, because all children deserve a quality, free education. If this seems unfair or unreasonable to you, we are never going to see eye to eye.
If I have to pay a little more with each paycheck to ensure my fellow Americans can access health care? SIGN ME UP. Poverty should not be a death sentence in the richest country in the world. If you’re okay with thousands of people dying of treatable diseases just so the wealthiest among us can hoard still more wealth, there is a divide between our worldviews that can never be bridged.
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Apparently rare earth metals aren’t actually that rare.
A group of 17 elements, rare earths are what the USGS (United States Geological Survey) describe as “moderately abundant.” That means they’re not as common as oxygen, silicon, and iron, which make up the vast majority of the Earth’s crust, but some are on a par with elements like copper and lead, which we don’t consider exotic or scarce. Significant deposits exist in China, but also Brazil, Canada, Australia, India, and the United States.
When you argue about politics with right-wingers you end up in a battle of values that you can’t win, because they have none apart from “me and mine”.
And they’re convinced you’re the exact same way you’re just, virtue-signaling. Like if they got enough beers in you in a comfortable environment, you’d admit to being racist just like they do in the same situation.
Often they throw out a little test ballon. “Im not racist, but…” (something relatively innocuous). And then when you stiffen up they usually drop it at that. But I’m sure when two of them meet it gets really bad really fast from there.
Because people tend to assume that others share the same faults as them, so right-wingers assume that at heart everyone is a self-centered PoS and therefore wanting a better society for all must be a put-on.
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How does that matter? One of the smartest people I know about this literally told me he doesn’t think there would have been a meaningful difference in how this went globally if it had started in rural Wisconsin and I basically agree with him… but that doesn’t change a single word in my post.
They had wet markets that had already spun out nasty nasty viruses. Play with fire get burned. Whether they could have prevented it or not there’s clearly liability there in the sense that they’ve created the largest global tort in living memory.
Assuming we’re eventually going to lose reserve currency status this feels like as good a moment as any.
I mean let’s not kid ourselves, the GOP is in the process of breaking the country up. Trying to put the screws to states that contribute vastly more to the federal pot than they take out isn’t going to end well. Blowing up the reserve currency (which is basically all the big/rich states get out of being part of the US IRL) isn’t going to end well either.
Honestly though at this point I’m starting to wonder if the US isn’t simply too big/diverse to govern and if it isn’t time for the empire to come crashing down. Every other empire that ever existed eventually fell. Maybe it’s our time.
If we’re going to blow up the reserve currency there’s worse ways to do it than cancelling 13T worth of federal debt. At least that will buy us a little bit of breathing room.
The US is still attempting to manufacture q-tips. Give the re-gearing of mining from coal to raw earth minerals a few years will you (in the meantime, no iphones)
We would have a pretty rough time for a while supplying our medications until the capacity was built out domestically or elsewhere. Many would die for sure.
According to site stats we have at least a few. More than we have from many states. Whether or not they are registered accounts, idk.
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https://www.rawstory.com/2020/04/new-study-reveals-the-best-conditions-for-spreading-coronavirus/
Interestingly, there are more studies that suggest transmission is more likely to happen indoors, not outdoors. A study in Japan concluded that “the odds that a primary case transmitted COVID-19 in a closed environment was 18.7 times greater compared to an open-air environment.”
Maybe bodes well for spring but not so much for summer when it gets so hot in a lot of the country that everyone heads back indoors. Singapore where most residents spend most of their day in AC has been seeing problems with this. Poorer hot weather countries where most people use fans instead of AC could have a big advantage.
Even in places like Costa Rica and Nicaragua - I didn’t see many houses, including expats, that had full time AC - just AC for the bedroom at night. Electricity is just too expensive.
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afaik it is 1.3tn not 13 - so debt default and probably massive contagion in the financial system (due to payouts from derivatives) for one year’s pre virus borrowing, isn’t a viable option imo.
What has happened to them? Have they “accidentally” been falling out of windows?