Here's a version of that story, but this time it's respirators...."Thirteen years ago, a group of U.S.
public health officials came up with a plan to address ...one of the medical system’s crucial vulnerabilities: a
shortage of ventilators.The
breathing-assistance machines tended to be bulky, expensive and limited
in number. The plan was to build a large fleet of inexpensive portable
devices to deploy in a flu pandemic.... Money was budgeted. A federal contract was signed. Work got underway...."
And then. "A multibillion-dollar maker of medical devices bought the small
California company that had been hired to design the new machines.....Covidien — a publicly traded company with sales of $12 billion that year
— already sold traditional ventilators, but that was only a small part
of its multifaceted businesses. In 2012 alone, Covidien bought five
other medical device companies, in addition to Newport." Ultimately they cancelled Newport's contract with the government. Why?
They wanted more money....or they wanted to put a company making respirators for less out of business. New York Times, March 30.
Not that the handmaidens of Marx did much better: "After SARS, Chinese health officials built an infectious disease
reporting system to evade political meddling. But when the coronavirus
emerged, so did fears of upsetting Beijing." Same paper, same day.
China, however, seems to have enough respirators. They have sent some to the running dogs of capitalism. Same paper, same day.
I've also read that the evil capitalists' donations of respirators to China far outstrips whatever they've sent to us.
ReplyDeleteBuying up a small competitor to take their disruptive product off the market is an old corporate trick. I guess what's concerning it that they were also able to cancel a government contract.
Jim, Mona Charen's conclusion today, after counting blunders and lies along the timeline:
Delete"China. Relentless propaganda lauding Premier Xi’s great leadership in fighting the coronavirus may succeed with many Chinese. Will the world remember the criminal dishonesty that arguably unleashed this pestilence?
"USA. By consistently downplaying and denying the seriousness of the threat, President Trump cost the American people precious time. By encouraging a false sense of security, he prevented federal, state and local governments from gearing up for the worst emergency we have faced in 100 years. Will the world remember the criminal dishonesty that permitted this pestilence to hit us so very hard?"
Our country already experienced a political and economic revolution. It was the Reagan Revolution. And his famous line was "Government isn't the solution. Government is the problem". Incremental change doesn't cancel out wrong revolutions. Revolutions do. And now we have Vegetable Lasagna destined to become the Democratic nominee. Cuomo isn't what we need either.
ReplyDeleteDepressing. Avarice nay not be as noisy as anger, or as sexy as lust, but in the end it may be the most destructive of the seven deadlies.
ReplyDeleteWe are learning that the assistant manager at our supermarket, who okays checks, makes sure the floor is mopped and jumps in to help when all the bag boys are otherwise engaged -- that guy... is a darn sight more important to us than the partners in any hedge fund you can name, or, for that matter, the suits that oversee the banks and airlines. Now that we know that, pay structures could conceivably change to reflect who's needed and who is a barnacle. But when all is said and done, we will know better, but money will talk and what we know will walk. It's a pity. A crisis like this shouldn't be used to turn the world around not to bail out friends of the party in power.
ReplyDeleteIn a crisis, one in three people will figure out how to monetize misery, either by squashing cheap respirators or gouging people on the price of hand sanitizer. Most of the rest will help them do it because "my family's gotta eat."
ReplyDeleteIt's a fallen world.
And we have Trump saying stupid stuff like this, that medical personnel are stealing masks to sell.
ReplyDeleteI wonder why Cuomo is having the state cops investigate this. To mollify Trump? To be able to show it's not true? Couldn't NY state cop time be better spent on other things?
DeleteMy guess is to show it's not true.
DeleteNow I see that Biden is pushing on Trump to use emergency powers to get manufacturers to ramp up mask production, like he is doing with GM and the ventilators.
The only trouble with encouraging Tump to use the emergency powers hammer is that from this day forward everything will look like a nail to him. Of course it would anyways.
Would we be surprised to find that the NYPD has this at the bottom of its to-do list?
DeleteThey may have better things to do, or NOT....for example, Mayor de Blasio has ordered $50. tickets for groups not keeping proper social distance and refusing to disperse when ordered by a police officer.
Amazing what the authorities dream up for the police, and what the police have the sense to file away!
Yes! I hope the cops ignore the investigation order so Cuomo can simply cut Trump off at the knees and say that there is no evidence that any black-market sales are going on.
DeleteHonestly, can you imagine risking your life every damn day in a C19 ward and having Our Nation's Leader accuse you of black marketeering?
It beggars the imagination. Except it's real.
Speaking of beggars the imagination: The Times TV critic, James Poniewozak, has this take on Trump's new daily reality show. Not that we haven't noticed, but he convincingly lines up the details: Prime Time Pandemic.
Deletehttps://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/30/arts/television/trump-coronavirus-briefing.html
Nice analysis.
Delete