Can Our Government Save Us From the Coming Flu Pandemic?

On June 11, 2009 the World Health Organization declared that the A (H1N1) Swine Flu had become a pandemic.  There is now no question that the disease will spread throughout the world.  It is expected that this influenza virus will revisit the U.S. in the fall, as most influenzas do, and the number of cases will be far higher than what was experienced earlier this year.  There are now a couple of questions that come to mind. 1) Is our government taking any steps to protect the population from the spread of this disease? 2) What will our government do if the virus mutates (as they often do) into a form that is resistant to any vaccines that might have been prepared in advance?

In 1918-1919 a very deadly pandemic influenza spread throughout the world, killing between 30,000,000 and 50,000,000 people worldwide.  More people died from that flu than died in World War I.  An estimated 675,000 Americans died from the flu during that pandemic.  At the time there was nothing that could be done to prevent the spread of the disease. Flu vaccines were unknown.  The coming pandemic may well spread as far and wide as the 1918-1919 pandemic, maybe more since we have a much more densely populated world now.  Right now, the current pandemic flu virus is not as deadly as the 1918 one. But does that mean we are safe?  What if it mutates? What is our government doing about the situation?

According to John O. Brennan, the President’s advisor on Homeland Security, the government is planning to have a flu vaccine available for voluntary vaccinations by mid-October. Which is a little late. The flu season usually starts before then.  He doesn’t say how many doses are being created, nor does he say how much they will cost – but they will be voluntary – if you can get one. Let’s take a moment and compare our American response to the problem with that of a country that has a national health insurance program. Hmmm…I winder what Ireland is doing about the flu? On July 4th the government of Ireland announced that they will provide free flu vaccinations to the entire population of the country this autumn. Aren’t you glad we don’t suffer from a national health program like those poor Europeans?

Oh, there is this one other detail – you know, the one about the virus mutating.  What do we do if the virus mutates into a really deadly virus?  That’s what happened in 1918.  If the mutation is major then the vaccines we are making in the U.S. will probably have no effect – and we also won’t be able to make enough of a new version of the vaccine in time.  That’s because we grow our vaccines in eggs, and that just takes a lot of time and lots of eggs too.  After all, our drug companies can’t make the vaccine in batches of a million eggs at a time.  So, to put it succinctly, we’ll just be out of luck.

On the other hand, there is another way to make a vaccine – synthetically.  Synthetic vaccines using techniques that already exist could build up our supply 100 times or more faster than using eggs. But our government is not pushing this technique. After all – we don’t have a national health system, do we?  It’s up to our private, profit-making, drug companies to develop such a vaccine and, of course, the real issue is this: does it make economic sense? Can they recoup their investment dollars? Who’s going to pay for all the development costs? So, while some companies say they already can make such a vaccine synthetically, as a country, we really don’t have much capability at the moment.  And of course, if the flu suddenly mutates, it’ll be a little late to create the capability won’t it?

So, what is the answer to my question? Can our government save us from the pandemic that the World Health Organization says is certain to come? Sure, if the virus doesn’t mutate and still only produces very mild cases of flu. But do we really need saving from that? And what if the virus turns deadly. That’s when we really will need our government to save us.  So far, however, it doesn’t look good. Right now the profit picture, probabilities of mutation, investment risk, and so forth is sort of keeping our major drug manufacturers on the bench  with regard to the synthetic vaccine thing.  Remember, the key issue here is profit.  Aren’t you glad we don’t have a government health program?

By the way, if you like reading medical thrillers (and you like my blog), you might also like my novel about a pandemic. It’s called The Viral Epiphany and its available on Amazon.  You’ll need a Kindle reader though, because it’s only available for digital downloads for now. You can take a look at it and order it here.

Can We Trust the CIA?

Here’s what I’m wondering: When CIA Director Leon Panetta told Congress last month that he and the CIA had lied to Congress in the past, was he lying or telling the truth?  When an agency that is charged with providing information also gets into the disinformation business, how do you know which product is being provided to you, since they are expert at both? And if you know they have lied to you, how do you know you can trust them ever again?

The question to be asked is this: has the CIA, as a result of its complete loyalty to the regal Bush administration and thereby its participation in the cover-up of torture, as well as the providing of completely false information that was used to justify the Iraq War, become “beyond salvage”? Or can the CIA be fixed, and if so how do we fix it and even more, how do we confirm that it is fixed?

Things shouldn’t be like this.  The Central Intelligence Agency was created for a definite mission that is necessary for the defense of America.  For more than half a century the CIA has provided invaluable service to many Presidents and to the country.  It’s stated mission and goals are lofty and admirable. So what went wrong? How can it be that one of our most dedicated, pro-American, self-sacrificing organizations finds itself cross-threaded with the United States House of Representatives and maybe the Senate too?

The fundamental problem lies not with the CIA.  The CIA has tried to follow what it has been told is the chain of command, and it has done so to a fault.  They just followed orders, like good clandestine soldiers.  However, in this case, there was no other possible outcome because there is a fundamental flaw in the way our government is structured.  The CIA serves the President of the United States. They take orders from the President – not the House of Representatives and not the Senate.  However, the Congress does have oversight responsibility of the CIA, i.e, they have the authority to know what is going on in case some laws are being broken and so forth. But what happens if the President tells the CIA not to tell Congress what is going on? What if the President tells the CIA to lie to Congress?  Then whose orders do they follow, the President’s or those of Congress?  I believe we have excellent illustration here of the truth of the saying, “No man can serve two masters.”

It appears that the CIA Director Leon Panetta chose to follow the orders of the President.  Oh, wait.  Are you thinking that maybe George or Dick wasn’t involved? Could it be that good clandestine soldier Leon was just deceiving Congress for the Hell of it????  Was he just going rogue????  Right.

A Congressional investigation is almost sure to happen now.  Isn’t it? I mean how could Congress not try to find out exactly what went wrong? Surely they want to know.  Don’t they? They’re not afraid of what they’ll find are they?

The problem with the CIA trying to satisfy two masters is not unusual.  The same is true for the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force.  They all have a Commander in Chief, i.e. the President, and they all serve him too. This also includes all the civil servants who make up a good part of our government work force. In fact, not too many people report to Congress, do they? Which is probably why there is so much unhappiness among civil servants when a Congressman or Senator writes language in a Bill instructing money to be spent on some project that wasn’t in the “President’s budget”. It’s like the Civil Servants believe that the Congress has no right to participate in these decisions.  Except that it does. It’s in the Constitution.  It’s the way our government is structured. Checks and balances and so forth so we won’t have any more tyrants like King George.

Yes, although it makes a lot of government employees very unhappy, Congress does have a say.  It does have authority. Our President is not a monarch – something George Bush and Dick Cheney never quite realized.  It seems that these two characters happily manipulated the system, taking advantage of the delicate relationship between the powers of the Executive and the Congress…..  Actually, they just steamrolled Congress, let’s face it.  They got away with everything they wanted and they had people, like CIA Director Panetta, do the dirty work for them.  Like lying to Congress, I’m guessing. I know – it’s a wild and crazy guess.

Now, I suppose Panetta will pay the price for his loyalty to King George Bush.  On the other hand, if he didn’t lie to Congress, he probably would have lost his job a long time ago. (If my tenuous hypothesis is right, of course) Basically Leon was in a lose – lose situation from the beginning, he just didn’t know it.  He thought he was doing his job, being loyal to the King… uh..President.  The real problem was that the President and Vice President didn’t seem to be too loyal to the people or the Constitution, and so we were all in a lose – lose situation. And now, like Leon, we have to pay the price too.

But what about my original question? Can we trust the CIA? Yes, of course we can – just as much as we trust our President, no more and no less.

It’s Time for a Firehose Stimulus

Vice President Biden said it very clearly – we “misread how bad the economy was”.  That’s the good thing about Joe Biden; he just tells you straight, just like it is.  He doesn’t try to finesse things or put the right political spin on things – he just blurts out the truth as best he knows it.  It’s kind of refreshing, isn’t it?  A day or so later. President Obama tried to correct Joe’s statement by saying “we had incomplete information”.  Apparently Paul Krugman wasn’t suffering from incomplete information, nor was Nouriel Roubini. Back in January, Nobel Prize winning economist Krugman criticized the Obama plan saying that we needed a stimulus package twice as big as the Obama plan. Meanwhile, Nouriel Roubini, the economist who predicted the worldwide economic meltdown, thereby earning the title of Dr. Doom and simultaneously qualifying for a Nobel Prize himself, also said that the Obama stimulus was insufficient.  So how is it that noted economists like Krugman and Roubini had enough information to come out and say that the Obama plan wouldn’t be enough?  How can the President of the United States have incomplete information? It seems that the truth lies more in Joe’s words – they just didn’t realize how bad things were – despite being told how bad things were by these preeminent economists.  In other words they chose not to listen to Krugman and Roubini. I wonder who they did listen to? Geithner? Bernanke? Summers? In any event, they got it wrong and the time has come to correct it.

Now of course the Republican Party has a different opinion.  The are more or less saying, “See, we told you a stimulus wouldn’t work”.  Their plan is to  just  remove all the rules, regulations, and taxes from businesses and restart a free for all economy with no rules – the sort of thing created by Clinton and Bush that created the worldwide meltdown.   Here’s an analogy: let’s suppose your house is on fire and the Obama Fire Department arrives with garden hoses. They spray water on the fire but it doesn’t go out.  Then the Republicans show up – not the Republican Fire Department (because they don’t have one), just a bunch of gawkers who hang around sniggering and making comments like, “See, we knew you can’t put out a fire with water!!  That’s why we don’t even try!  Say, why not try gasoline? That might work!”  The thing is this: we need firehoses, not garden hoses.  It’s a big fire.  Joe was right.  So was Krugman and Roubini. Obama needs to admit it.  They thought unemployment would peak at 8%.  It didn’t. We’ll probably break through to 10% unemployment within a month.  It could go a lot higher.  Meanwhile only 10% of the stimulus money has even been spent. Do I detect a certain lack of understanding here? The house is on Fire!! Break out the firehoses and put the fire out!!  Now!!

Meanwhile, perhaps the Republican “Fire Department” could just step back and keep out of the way. If you’re not part of the solution then you are part of the problem, and we don’t have the time or the luxury to start playing politics while our economy continues to go up in smoke.  I’m glad Joe Biden gets it. He needs to have a talk with President Obama – a Joe Biden kind of talk – and let him know, in no uncertain terms, that we don’t need finesse right now. We don’t need to calculate the exact cost of the remedy and then determine not to spend a penny more.  What we need is Stimulus Part II – and this time, let’s use the firehoses.

The Dreamliner – Boeing’s Nightmare or Our Nightmare?

Lockheed, Douglas, McDonnell-Douglas, Wright, Curtiss, Fairchild, Convair (General Dynamics), Martin, Consolidated – these are the names of companies that used to build commercial aircraft in the United States. Of those that still exist, none of them build commercial planes any more. Instead they only build military aircraft.  We are down to our last commercial aircraft company in the U.S. – Boeing, and Boeing is struggling to build and fly its most recent design, the 787 Dreamliner.  Recently, Boeing announced yet another major delay in producing the 787 due to problems with the wing roots.  It could be a year or more before the “Dreamliner” flies.

Recently, at the Paris Air Show, it looked for a while that Boeing wasn’t going to get any orders for its commercial planes, such as the 737 and 747, let alone the 787. Finally, an aircraft leasing company from Japan, MC Aviation Partners, ordered two 737s.  Meanwhile the European Airbus Consortium had taken a total of 57 orders for its planes. And Brazilian Regional Jet builder Embraer took orders for over 190 aircraft. Incredibly, Boeing says they have no interest in the regional jet business.  This is despite the fact that about half of all flights in the U.S. these days are on regional jets. Most of these regional jets are made either by Brazil’s Embraer Company or Canada’s Bombardier Company.  So, if Boeing is ignoring the massive regional jet market, and at the same time they are having enormous problems getting the Dreamliner off the ground, and the European Airbus is taking lots more orders than they are, what does that say about Boeing’s future? Will they go the way of Lockheed, and the others?

Probably.  In fact they already have much more than a foot in the door.  It’s more like both legs in the door. That door being the Pentagon’s of course.  Besides the C-17  Globemaster, the F-15 Strike Eagle, the F-22 Raptor, and a lot more – actually lots, lots more – Boeing is doing very well with military orders, thank you very much.  Perhaps Boeing is on the verge of transitioning to the happy hunting ground of government contracting that all of its competitors discovered long ago.  There certainly seems to be a lot of money to be made there, and there aren’t all those pesky issues of passenger comfort and safety, noise reduction, fuel efficiency, multiple competitors from other countries, and so many other benefits that go along with government contracting.

One can only wonder.  Will the Nightmare be Boeing’s Commercial Aircraft’s swan song?  Will American industry finally cede the commercial aircraft industry to foreign countries?  Why not? We already outsource just about everything else, don’t we?  Just wait until China and India get into the act.  In fact, without the government military dole we might not have an American aviation industry right now.  With the government’s odd (to say the least) way of making buying decisions we could go on building B-1 bombers, F-22 Raptors, and F-35 joint strike fighters and so much more forever.

It’s the worldwide commercial airplane business, with all its cutthroat competition, that clearly makes no commercial sense these days for the American airplane industry.  American industry just can’t compete.  It’s like everything else in American manufacturing: how did this American Dream turn into America’s Nightmare? The Nightmare doesn’t just belong to Boeing; it belongs to all of us.

They Caused the World Economic Meltdown and Got Away with It

Here’s a question: why is it that the perpetrators of the most massive financial deception in world history are not being prosecuted by anyone?  I am referring to the recent collapse of the world’s economy that was directly caused by the collapse of the U.S. real estate market, which then led to truly massive losses in the world’s banks.  When all is said and done, one finds that, at the heart of this debacle, there wasn’t a series of innocent mistakes in judgment.  There was no “perfect storm” of random economic factors that all came together at the same time to inundate the world economy.  None of the banking disasters would have happened if it were not for the deliberate deception that occurred on a scale that has never been seen before.

The deception was this:  as the feeding frenzy increased in an overheated U.S. real estate market, banks became more eager to grant mortgages in order to get an even larger piece of the action.  Eventually, these banks – normally conservative investment institutions – began granting loans to people who might not be able to easily repay the mortgages.  Then the banks began giving mortgage loans to people who certainly could never repay the mortgages – their only hope would be to flip houses  in an extremely hot market.  Then the banks stopped even asking for proof of employment or income.  The banks were handing out money like there was no tomorrow (which is today, by the way).

Why would the banks be so foolish when they used to be so practical?  Could it be because they were flipping the mortgages even faster than the unemployed home buyers were flipping their houses? As Sarah Palin would say, “You betcha”.  But how could the banks flip these toxic mortgages so easily?  Wouldn’t the prospective buyers shun what is obviously a high risk investment?  Not if the mortgages are sliced into pieces and put into different packages so the individual mortgages are unrecognizable.  Right? Not if the banks can get a rating agency to give these “investments” a AAA rating instead of the ZZZ rating they deserved.  Right?  Of course.

So, before you could say, “flip my mortgage”, the banks – with the complicity of the ratings agencies – carried out a massive, worldwide deception and sold these collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) to other banks, foreign banks, and anyone else who thought they could make a quick buck in real estate.  Of course, some of these buyers were not quite so sure about the massive profits they hoped to make so they bought insurance in case the mortgagees defaulted on their loans – these were called credit default swaps (CDSs) and the “insurance policies” were sold by companies like AIG.  Some banks, knowing that the whole thing was sure to implode, bought CDSs without even buying the CDOs – which turned out to be a smart move for them, but not unlike laying down a bet on the roulette wheel in Las Vegas.  OK, maybe it wasn’t just luck.  Maybe they actually knew how toxic the CDOs were – so maybe they figured they were actually buying a sure thing when they bought the CDSs.

The thing I wonder about is this: our government has spent about a trillion dollars bailing out the banks who made the dumb investment decisions.  This trillion dollar bill now rests upon the American taxpayer, who now turns out to be the great chump in this whole fiasco.  Meanwhile, the banks (who should have borne the entire burden of the crash they created and simply vaporized, or gone to Hell or something) are now in good shape and have resumed their usurious ways, bleeding the American taxpayer with merciless interest rates.

But besides the banks – what about the guys who lied about the “AAA” securities – the rating agencies? Didn’t they commit a crime by mislabelling these product?  They must have known that when these these “securities” were flipped to unsuspecting buyers that they were dealing in rotten garbage.  Isn’t that a crime – like selling someone a car without an engine or selling someone a ticket on a defunct airline? The simple fact is that these CDOs were worthless and the banks must have known that.  The securities rating agencies must have known that.  These aren’t stupid people; they are well educated, well informed, and very well paid members of the establishment.

So where are the prosecutions?  Where are the arrests?  We all know that the Securities and Exchange Commission was asleep at the wheel for years, even refusing, time and again, to glance at Bernie Madoff, despite repeated warnings from people who knew he was running the greatest Ponzi scheme of all time. Yet even Bad Boy Bernie has had his day in court, and he’s been sentenced to 150 years in prison for causing financial harm that can’t begin to compare with the harm that has been caused by the Great Meltdown.  But are the banks and the rating agencies even being investigated, let alone prosecuted? No. Nothing. Zip. Nada. On the contrary, we are giving them money – lots and lots of it.

So, is that it?  That’s all the government is going to do?  No more investigations?  No more prosecutions?  Is it now time to move on and let bygones be bygones?  Shall we just forget it all happened? Am I missing something here?  These people practically destroyed the economy of the entire world and we will be paying for this for the rest of our lives, and our children will be paying for it for their entire lives, and their children will be paying for it for their entire lives.  And the U.S. government has nothing to say about the massive banking fraud and securities deceptions that were central to the whole thing? And everybody’s OK with that? I guess so…

All I can say is, ” Our American oligarchy is pretty slick, isn’t it?”

You have to at least admire that.