- Let ‘em fly. Maybe you shouldn’t have.
- Forget the masks. Oh. I guess we should be wearing them.
- Don’t let the cruise ships port. Oh. I guess we compromised their civil liberties.
- Marginally pay those long term care workers. Oh. I guess some of those exorbitant doctors salaries should have been budgeted there.
- Speak in monotones. Oh. A little passion for corrective measure would have helped.
- Ignore the problem and blame oversight on impeachment distraction. Head shaker.
- Forget the inventory of PPE. We have doctors to pay.
- Implement regulation and then fail to enforce. How many tickets have been issued?
- Cell phones as tracking devices. Who pays those cell phone bills?
- Codify financial lingo to disguise the effect. I.E. “purchase bonds” vs “print money”.
Category Archives: Lifes Lessons
Pandemic Potpourri
- So ah, take out delivery. Don’t you have tons of time on your hands to cook
- Something like seven years to get a doctors degree and still so much contradictory opinion about wearing a mask and defining etiology
- Idiocy of downplaying potential and then actualizing the black swan.
- Still selling toilet paper in packages of 18 rolls weeks after discovering supply chain issue.
- Much talk and little real leadership from particular politicians.
- Few people exercising outside and you know they’re headed for a weight gain dilemma.
- Human rights reflection in failing to permit cruise ships to port.
- Potential for infringing on civil liberties with cell phone tracking permissions.
- Discounting any semblance of common sense and government dictums with bulletin board notices and patronizing ads about staying home.
- Instances of misplaced sense of authority over others’ conduct.
Untimely Elimination of Epidemiologist Position
There was an untimely elimination of an epidemiologist position in China back in July of 2019. You know how much Mr. Trump liked to exclaim “you’re fired” back when he hosted “The Apprentice”. It’s Reuters and four of their sources who expose this stunning revelation. The key post administered through the American Centre for Disease Control was bestowed the duty of identifying disease outbreaks in China. Dr. Linda Quick served in the role prior to it being extinguished. This woman actually trained Chinese field epidemiologists in concert with monitoring the public health landscape. Chinese American Bao-Ping Zhu who served in the role from 2007 to 2011 expressed his dismay to Reuters. The four sources also confided to Reuters that no other foreign disease experts were embedded in China after the departure of Dr. Quick.
Who would have thought during the taping of “The Apprentice” that the term “you’re fired” by one, Donald Trump would one day come back and haunt hundreds of thousands of people around the world whose health depends on the early detection of deadly viruses? Were there other variables associated with the outbreak? Yes. One very important variable would have been the strength of the relationship between countries and the goodwill of China in communicating issues around public health to the U.S. and the World Health Organization. I’ll leave it to you to speculate whether Trump fostered trustworthy relations with the Chinese. If these sources are correct, the World Health Organization may have also failed in its duty to deploy resources inside China.
The matter of corporate interests in the aviation sector, the “travel bug”, and duties of repatriating citizens, and limitations of airports in dealing with crowds have also been key elements associated with this pandemic of COVID-19. The aviation industry as we see it today and the negative consequences we’ve come to realize were likely unimaginable to the Wright Brothers as they pioneered motorized flight.
The Cyber Medium of Control
This is what’s on my mind today as I receive emails pertaining to COVID-19 from those compelled to exhibit their interpretation of this virus in the context of their platform / agenda / business relationship with you / notion of how think you now need to operate in the context of their interpretation of the public health message.
Everybody’s got an opinion and they have needed to learn how to type in order to convey it through the internet. Thanks god I took typing class in grade 9 with all the girls while my friends took shop as their elective. What were they thinking?
Anyway….I’m amused by superfluous posts and reposts of value driven dogma which percolates occasionally on internet threads. Suddenly an audience is illuminated through a key stroke when the more difficult gesture would be a letter to a member of parliament (yes, I have written them in case you wonder).
Then there’s the internet companies who literally dictate terms and then await the fall out. I guess Apple app developers receive automated bots for feedback on why their apps disqualify for hosting. I’ve had a copyright claim on youtube within the first 30 seconds of upload. They couldn’t have possible got through the full 1:58 in order to fully digest the material. I’ll be at their mercy with my 28 subscribers having uploaded to “private” never intending to monetize the video.
Then there’s the government with its tax collection and system of correspondence now pretty much dictating communication through the internet as opposed to a live person. If you really want to talk to somebody, you’ll have to navigate the phone auto attendant just to find the queue to wait in for 30 minutes. Your music will certainly be interrupted frequently with messages of education hoping you’ll find some nugget of information thereby reducing the probability of being redundant when you finally get through to talk to that agent. This agent will need to provide you their agent ID number. Have your pen handy for those 30 minutes ‘cause they spout it off quickly hoping you’ll not catch it thereby potentially not being liable for the conversation.
You get the drift. We have all these phones now but folks don’t want to talk on them for anything relevant to their business or professional life. Email or text only please – I’m now conversation inept having been raised behind a computer screen.
One must ask, are we now more efficient? I suggest yes at times and no oftentimes. Nobody wants to be controlled but they do want balanced reciprocation. People know when they are being controlled and they will resent it. When communication is compromised – so is the relationship.
Newsy Week Eh
From the stand point of the stock market, this is a lesson that so many folks needed to learn. Your investment advisors are simply people with vulnerabilities like the rest of us. The buy and hold mantra has cost you money. You must put attention on your own investments and you must actively manage your portfolio with input from financial people who know more than you. You must be the torch bearer of your own financial destiny. You must be in a mode of “continuous learning”. What about locked in accounts and government pensions you ask. Well, you are at the mercy of portfolio managers but you still have access to your accounts with a right to know what you own.
So….how do I find the time to manage my own investments? You fit it in. You stop succumbing to the bosses request for overtime. You put boundaries around your schedule. You stop being a pushover when it comes to your calendar. This might mean helping your spouse understand that that second vacation within a calendar year goes bye bye. Boo hoo! What would you rather have – an earlier with compounded accelerated rate of return and an earlier retirement or that second vacation just because your kids get a spring break?
Now that I’m on a roll ‘cause I put this together having just returned from an empty gym ‘cause of the psychology behind avoiding sweat boxes now that we’re dealing with this corona virus, I expound further. Have you seen the chart on the Dow 30? The thing has been going straight up for years. Did you not think that it was overdue for a major correction in response to some kind of Black Swan event? Hell….I simply took a look at the incompetence of governments in running budgets given deficits and debts and on that basis alone considered the market over heated. Have you not perceived the weakness currently in our North American political leaders?? There’s another factor right there in and of itself worthy of shorting the market or running for the hills.