Generational Dynamics World View News

[Trevor]

I'm still not too concerned about the Coronavirus, at least not by itself. For all the panic it's causing, the Swine Flu in 2009 killed 11,000 Americans and infected millions. At last count right now, we've got around 500 confirmed cases and 21 deaths.

But as of the moment I write this, the stock market's crashed 1,400 points in a couple hours. I've heard for many years that the stock market crash Generational Dynamics predicted is about to begin. I'm still not 100% sure it's truly here, but events are beginning to convince me. I'll give it about a month before I make a final decision on it but losing 4000 points in less than a month is enough to get my attention. We may end up panicking ourselves into an economic crash even if damage from the actual virus is minimal.

[Guest]

China is getting back to work AND their cases are decreasing every day. Um, sure. Someone must have told the CCP that we want to buy a bridge from them.

OR, the real explosion has yet to occur.

OR, they've run out of masks, tests and basic medical supplies. Better to say everything is okay than tell the truth.

It's just the old and already sick people who are dying anyway. The old people lived through the real history of China. The young mostly know, and believe, what the CCP has taught them. Bonus!

[John]

** 09-Mar-2020 World View: Seasonal flu vs Covid-19

> I’m certainly not an expert, but here’s the things I’ve noticed:

> 1. Our current flu shot’s efficiency is about 30 to 60%. These are
> the best vaccines they have; the same ones are given to movie
> stars, nobility, politicians and middle class alike. None of them
> are 100% efficient. This means that out of every 100 people who
> gets a flu shot, 40 to 70 of them will still get the flu. The most
> logical explanation as to why vaccines are so inefficient is virus
> mutation. By the time the vaccine is developed and tested and sent
> out to be manufactured, the virus has mutated. That does not mean
> the vaccine won’t protect you; it means the potency is less
> effective against a virus that is fighting back. The un-mutated
> virus is a heavy bag and the mutated virus is a boxing match.

> 2. There are usually 2 to 4 strains every year covered by the flu
> shot. Each strain in it may have more or less efficiency than
> another strain in it. Depending on the strain that’s going around,
> you may have strong efficiency protection or just a little. All in
> all, and simply put, they work together to help keep you from
> contracting one strain when you might have contracted another
> strain. And also simply put, if you are one of the 40 to 70 who
> contract a strain in the flu shot, the vaccine can help you fight
> off the strain you contracted, so the severity is not as bad as it
> could be. I’m a pro boxer and the virus is an amateur. You are not
> totally out of luck if you contract a strain not covered by your
> flu shot. There is evidence that your body develops defenses to
> help you fight against them too. However, there is no reporting
> that I’m aware of that this is the case or not the case with
> Covid-19. Since older and/or people with preexisting conditions
> are more likely to get flu shots, I suspect this is not the case
> for Covid-19. I’ve heard many health reporters saying wash your
> hands, stay 6 feet away from people, don’t touch your face,
> etc. I’ve not heard one of them say, oh and by the way, get a flu
> shot. I don’t know, maybe they did but I didn’t hear it. But who
> knows, the flu shot might be the reason Covid-19 is not killing
> 25% of us. This could be an even match.

> 3. So to put this in context, I had my flu shot this year. I have
> a 30 to 60% chance of catching that nasty flu that has been going
> around my city since November and still is.. So far, I’ve been
> lucky or protected or both to not get it. I attribute some of my
> luck to my vigilance. If I do catch one of those viruses, my body
> has defenses to help me from getting very ill from them and I have
> less than a 0.1% chance I will die. On the other hand, I have a
> 100% chance that I will get Covid-19 when I am exposed to it and
> vigilance may not be enough. If I get it, there is a 20% chance it
> will be severe and a 3 to 4% chance I will die. By the time there
> is a vaccine for it, it might mutate. I am fighting a boxer who is
> way better than me.

> 4. A mask won’t protect you but it will protect health care
> workers on the front line. You don’t need one because they don’t
> have enough. My boxing opponent cheats.

> 5. What happened to 24 days for exposure to symptoms? It got a lot
> of press for a while. Could it be because 24 days is VERY hard and
> costly to quarantine? My trainer just bet against me.

> 6. They are telling us that it is unlikely that a person without
> symptoms is contagious. Well, tell that to all those people on the
> cruise ships who were exposed before anyone had symptoms and then
> they died. How many people did we allow into this country because
> they didn’t have a fever? Shadow boxers, everywhere.

> 7. Excuse me, but my opponent just pulled my boxers down. Dirty
> fighter.

This is very interesting information and analysis. Thank you for
posting it.

I've never had a flu shot. I had some really bad cases of the flu
when I was a kid, but by my 20s, they were never serious. I would
get a very severe stomachache, so I would go to bed with a heating
pad on my stomach, and within a couple of hours I would be OK except
possibly for a head cold -- and I took care of that with Vitamin C as
I've previously described.

So every year the doctor asks me whether I want a flu shot, and he
lectures me on why it's important, and I say that I've never had a
flu shot, and don't really want to get started now, since I believe
that multiple illnesses have helped me build up immunity to the
seasonal flu. I sometimes wonder if they should take some of my
blood and use it to develop a "universal flu vaccine."

So this has made me personally very blasé about Covid-19. I don't
take any particular precautions, except that I do wash my hands
more often than I used to. And when something on my face itches,
I scratch the itch, even though I'm not supposed to.

So you say, "On the other hand, I have a 100% chance that I will get
Covid-19 when I am exposed to it," and I feel the same way. I suppose
that I could wash my hands more often, or that I could just suffer
with the itch and let it drive me crazy, but basically I don't believe
that it would make any difference except, perhaps, to postpone getting
Covid-19 for a few extra days. But like you, I expect to get it. And
since I'm an "elderly" person, there's a good chance that I'm going to
die from it. A doctor once told me, in answer to a question: "John,
you have to die of something." So why not Covid-19?

[FishbellykanakaDude]

... I've never had a flu shot, and don't really want to get started now, since I believe that multiple illnesses have helped me build up immunity to the seasonal flu. I sometimes wonder if they should take some of my blood and use it to develop a "universal flu vaccine." ...

Har,.. bleed 'im t'save us all...!! Harrrr......!

..might work against the inevitable zombie plague, as well... bleed 'im til he's full on EMPTY..!

Jars 'o "JaX Blood Cure-All and Cocktail Mix",.. yummmmm in the RUM..!

[FishbellykanakaDude]

(( Please be thinkin' in the best Cornish Pirate accent y' can manage! ))
When things turn solemn,
Leave it t' a Pirate t' lighten the mood...

[John]

** 09-Mar-2020 World View: Zombies

> Har,.. bleed 'im t'save us all...!! Harrrr......! ..might work
> against the inevitable zombie plague, as well... bleed 'im til
> he's full on EMPTY..!

I would consider it an honor to give up some blood, if doing so would
make a million zombies healthy and happy. We all have to contribute
and do our part for others.

[DaKardii]

John, in addition to China, there are two other regions that I think could explode this year because of coronavirus: The Balkans and the Middle East.

In the Balkans, Greece and Turkey are moving dangerously close to war because of the migrant crisis at their border. Greece has deployed its military to all Turkish border outposts, and there have been reports of live ammunition being fired. Meanwhile, the Turkish military is assisting the migrants across the border and even arming them with tear gas canisters to use against Greek soldiers. It has also deployed drones to the border and is pushing back migrants trying to cross back into Turkey. Erdogan's government has been engaging in increasingly belligerent rhetoric towards not only Greece, but the entire continent of Europe, in response to this crisis. It could only be a matter of time before tensions escalate into a full-blown border conflict.

Right now, there are no confirmed cases of coronavirus in Turkey. But the border crisis has already escalated to this point without it. If/when the virus strikes Turkey, it likely will make the crisis much worse, as Turkey would then have a much greater incentive to remove the migrants from its territory.

As for the Middle East, the coronavirus played a central role in the breakdown in negotiations between Saudi Arabia and Russia over oil production. Saudi Arabia has responded by dramatically increasing its production, causing oil prices to plummet. This has created a lose-lose situation for Saudi Arabia. With the virus having crippled the global travel industry, global demand for oil will fall over the next few months. Saudi Arabia will then be stuck with an extremely large oil supply that's not being bought, which will drive prices down further. There is zero doubt that Saudi Arabia will suffer severe economic losses as a consequence of this decision. But that's not the end of it. Saudi Arabia's economy was already fragile to begin with, due to the previous oil price collapses of 2014-15, and massive debts incurred by its proxy wars against Iran. I've already mentioned on multiple occasions that the IMF has projected a Saudi bankruptcy by this year. And look where we are. The coronavirus may well be the event that sparks this bankruptcy.

A Saudi bankruptcy would cause a severe disruption of the balance of power in the Middle East, likely severe enough to spark a major war.

[FishbellykanakaDude]

** 09-Mar-2020 World View: Zombies

> Har,.. bleed 'im t'save us all...!! Harrrr......! ..might work
> against the inevitable zombie plague, as well... bleed 'im til
> he's full on EMPTY..!

I would consider it an honor to give up some blood, if doing so would
make a million zombies healthy and happy. We all have to contribute
and do our part for others.

Bloody JaX 4 PRESIDENT...!!!!

...308,758,105 (three hundred eight million seven hundred fifty eight thousand one hundred five) real and potential Zombies can't be wrong..!!

STOP the apocalypse by STARTING the apocalypse!

..drink up, m'dearies,.. drink up your cure-all,.. Bloody JaX Rum for EVERYONE...!!!

[Guest]

The vast majority of people, as those who read here understand, live in what I would call a bubble of “self experience”. This means that they don’t think something is possible, unless they personally have experienced it.

Nobody today has lived through a period where your life was in constant danger of ending due to sudden illness or infection. So, most people think that it is impossible, or, at the other extreme, they panic and think it is the end of the world.

The reality is that throughout most of history, people lived with the fact that they might come down with some kind of illness and die, even at a young age. Tuberculosis, Polio, Measles, Smallpox, and so on, regularly killed people, and there was little to nothing that could be done. Similarly, if you developed any kind of infection, due even to a simple cut or scrape, the infection would often kill you. Up until the 1940’s, about HALF of the people in hospitals were there with Sepsis, the result of infections.

The bubble of “self experience” has led people to do things like not inoculate their children. The parents have never experienced an epidemic, so they think something like that isn’t possible.

Thanks to vaccines and antibiotics, we have lived in a bubble of medical protection. This bubble is now failing. The “WuHu Flu” is probably the result of genetic research gone awry. What’s really frightening are the number of people doing genetic research in HOME LABORATORIES.

A vaccine might eventually be possible, so long as the Covid-19 doesn’t mutate much. I hope that is the case, but it might not be. And then of course is the possibility that additional new viral strains will either develop on their own, or some arrogant idiot will develop it in a lab and somehow release it.

On top of that, anti-biotics are starting to fail. Their over prescription and use in the meat industry have greatly reduced their effectiveness, and soon we will be facing even worse diseases that are antibiotic resistant.

The point is that this is not some kind of “new world”. It is the “old world”. The way things have usually been during history. Only our arrogance of thinking that we know everything and have answers to everything has led us to believe otherwise.

We will need to adapt and to deal with this as individuals and as families.

The world is returning to its norm in terms of lethality.

The WuHu flu is not the end. Nowhere near it. But it may very well have started the ball rolling towards the chaos that we expect.

There are popular joke memes going around that say "I survived:" followed by a list of previous hyped epidemics (SARS, Ebola, MERS, etc.) and/or other events that were predicted to be catastrophic, but weren't. Of course, none of these lists go back father than 2000. I suppose that's about as far back as the oldest people who make memes can remember.

There's still a chance that COVID-19 turns out to be less catastrophic than many fear. If so, the big question is what people will take away from this experience. Will this be a wake up call for people to start preparing for when a real crisis hits? Or will people who panicked be mocked back into complacency by peer pressure?

Can't help but be reminded of John's Principle of Maximum Ruin.

[richard5za]

Yes, I make this point to younger people from time to time. I was born in 1947 and grew up in Zimbabwe. Penicillin became available to the public in 1954 and before that ailments like pneumonia were a killer. You looked after your health more; like your mother putting you to bed when you had a cold, and your older relatives and people died younger. Life was less certain and death more common. It was life and will be life

Do you live in Zimbabwe now? Do they even have a functioning medical system now?

No. I live in Johannesburg, South Africa. I last visited Zimbabwe with my wife in 2014 for our 50th class reunion and I still am in contact with a few people who live there. One of my school friends spends a night with us when he passes through Johannesburg and we see a few others when they come to South Africa for medical attention. Zimbabwe is totally dysfunctional and very little in the way of imported supplies are available including medicine. Covid-19 combined with HIV rates, TB, and malaria is going to be devastating in Zimbabwe and other parts of Africa too.