Thursday, April 16, 2020

Some Thursday Thoughts

Greetings:






















This is the first Thursday I've had off in some time.  After sleeping late and then grabbing a nap, I decided I'd crunch some numbers that had nothing to do with income tax returns.  The results are below:



Nation Population Cases Pct of Deaths Pct of Tests Pct of Mortality
World World Population Rate
Total Total Tested
USA 331,002,651 653,825 30.73% 30,998 21.91% 3,278,488 0.99% 4.74%
Spain 46,754,758 182,216 8.56% 19,130 13.52% 600,000 1.28% 10.50%
Italy 60,461,826 168,941 7.94% 22,170 15.67% 1,178,403 1.95% 13.12%
France 65,273,511 141,900 6.67% 17,941 12.68% 333,807 0.51% 12.64%
Germany 83,783,942 135,843 6.38% 3,943 2.79% 1,728,357 2.06% 2.90%
UK 67,886,011 104,135 4.89% 13,759 9.73% 327,608 0.48% 13.21%
Iran 83,992,949 77,995 3.67% 4,869 3.44% 275,427 0.33% 6.24%
Turkey 84,339,067 74,193 3.49% 1,643 1.16% 518,143 0.61% 2.21%
Belgium 11,589,623 34,809 1.64% 4,857 3.43% 112,613 0.97% 13.95%
Canada 37,742,154 30,440 1.43% 1,229 0.87% 487,060 1.29% 4.04%
South Korea 51,269,815 10,613 0.50% 229 0.16% 527,438 1.03% 2.16%
Denmark 5,792,202 7,074 0.33% 321 0.23% 89,123 1.54% 4.54%
Taiwan 23,816,755 395 0.02% 6 0.00% 51,603 0.22% 1.52%
Iceland 341,243 1,739 0.08% 6 0.00% 38,204 11.20% 0.35%
New Zealand 4,822,233 1,491 0.07% 9 0.01% 70,160 1.45% 0.60%
Finland 5,540,720 3,369 0.16% 75 0.05% 46,000 0.83% 2.23%
Norway 5,421,241 6,848 0.32% 152 0.11% 124,279 2.29% 2.22%
India 1,380,004,385 12,759 0.60% 423 0.30% 286,714 0.02% 3.32%
Indonesia 273,563,615 5,516 0.26% 496 0.35% 33,001 0.01% 8.99%

I did not include the numbers from China because I do not believe they are even remotely accurate. The numbers for the mortality rate among the confirmed cases are misleading as hell because they do not represent just how many people have contracted Covid-19 without having been tested.  The nations that have had the most success in keeping the number of cases down; and concordantly the number of deaths down, are those that reacted at the outset of this pandemic.

We cannot begin moving in the direction of normalcy until the testing numbers grow.  A lot.  Trump trumpets just how many tests are now being done, but we still have tested less than 2% of our nation's population.  While the comparisons of Covid-19 and the flu are stupid, there is one flu fact worthy of consideration at the moment.  A survey conducted last fall by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases revealed that only 52% of American adults planned to get a flu shot.

That's right.  We keep hearing that the flu kills X amount of people annually as people who should know better try to minimize the risks of Covid-19.  That is in spite of a vaccine being available for the flu.

CDC data shows that during the 2018-19 influenza season that 34,157 Americans died from the flu.  In spite of millions of Americans getting flu shots.  Meanwhile, at this moment there have been over 30,000 Covid-19 deaths in the U.S.  That number is rising.  Over 2,400 in that total died just yesterday.

This is NOT the flu.

Ivanka Trump posted this tweet:




The problem is that just 4 days earlier she traveled from her D.C. home to her New Jersey home for Passover.  With her husband and 3 kids.  With their Secret Service detail.



❣️ pic.twitter.com/Rg017sRT8f
— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) March 30, 2020
Then there's this tweet from March 30th from Ms Trump

The height of hypocrisy.






posted by me at 3:16 PM

Tuesday, April 14, 2020

Leadership versus management


The warnings were clear.  Even Peter Navarro, who is an economist by trade saw the signs.  How do we know this?  He wrote a memo.  A memo that Donald Trump denies seeing.  Perhaps #DonTheCon can explain this part.


It's a memorandum to the president.  How in the world would a memo not be seen by the primary addressee?

As reported by the New York Times, there were other warnings.

Jan 26, 2020 - a senior medical advisor in the Veterans Administration wrote, "the projected size of the outbreak already seems hard to believe."

Jan 30, 2020 - HHS Alex Azar warned Trump on a phone call.  It was the 2nd warning within two weeks he gave Trump.

Mar 16, 2020 - Trump finally issues social distancing guidelines.

* * *

Why did he wait?  Was it his inherent distrust of the so-called "Deep State"?  Was it fear that damaging the economy would doom his shot at winning reelection?  Or is he simply so deluded that he believes that the outcome is something within his control, no matter what others tell him?

Does it really matter now?  People are dying.  Dying because he didn't take immediate action.  Because he was afraid that the bad news would damage the stock market and the economy.  Both of which were damaged far worse by his inaction.

Leaders take action.  Managers study.  Conduct focus groups.  Do research.

Perhaps the words of a military leader say it best.

"A good plan violently executed right now is far better than a perfect plan executed next week."

General George S. Patton said those words.  There is another quote from this man that perfectly describes the Trump administration.

"If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking."

posted by me at 5:22 AM

Tuesday, April 07, 2020

A lack of leadership

The United States Navy has an acting Secretary of the Navy (SECNAV) because his predecessor pissed off Donald Trump.  That is how one Thomas Modly came to be the person who fired Captain Brett Crozier, commanding officer of the aircraft carrier, USS Theodore Roosevelt.

Fired has a different meaning in the military than in the civilian world.  When your employer in the civilian world fires you, you no longer work for that employer in any capacity.  Captain Crozier is still in the Navy.  Fired in the military refers to being relieved of duty and removed from their current position (billet in military-speak).

Captain Crozier sent an email that was ultimately leaked to the San Francisco Chronicle.  Captain Crozier would later claim that he did this because he feared that his commanding officer, Rear Admiral Stuart Baker would not have allowed him to communicate his concerns to top Navy leadership.  Rear Adm. Baker confirmed that Captain Crozier was correct in that concern, according to Business Insider.  Note:  the "BLUF" at the beginning of the email is a military acronym for "Bottom Line Up Front."

Did Mr. Modly fire Captain Crozier because that email went against the Trump Administration narrative that they have the coronavirus pandemic "under control"?  That may be the case, but there is no proof of this.  What there is proof of is what the acting SECNAV did when he visited the carrier, still docked at Guam.

This is an excerpt from the transcript of what he said to the entire crew of the carrier, over the 1MC (shipwide loudspeaker):

"If he didn't think—it was my opinion, that if he didn't think that information was going to get out into the public, in this information age that we live in, then he was A, too naive or too stupid to be the commanding officer of a ship like this. The alternative is that he did this on purpose. And that's a serious violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which you are all familiar with." 

The acting SECNAV should know better.  He is a civilian now, but he is also a graduate of the Naval Academy. He served seven years on active duty before leaving to pursue a career in business.

After those remarks of his became public, Mr. Modly backed off.  But how he did that is interesting in and of itself:



Let's get this straight.  Mr. Modly calls Captain Crozier too naive or too stupid, then changes course and says that precisely because he doesn't think the man is stupid or naive; the release of the email to the media must have been deliberate.

He was not apologizing for his insults directed at this heroic sailor.  Had his remarks not become public knowledge, he wouldn't have addressed them.  So what he does is use his "apology" to accuse Captain Crozier of having acted with malice.

This is just wrong.






posted by me at 5:56 AM