Fallacious Coronavirus Stats?

I learned long ago to not trust financial data from China, so why would I believe epidemiological data from that razzle-dazzle part of the world? Each day we read the official coronavirus counts (infections and deaths) and I notice these have been progressing arithmetically for most of the duration of the epidemic: around 2,000 new cases per day I estimate.

This slow and steady march has seemed uncharacteristic of an epidemic. Geometrical and, I suppose even logarithmic, spread of infection normally characterizes epidemics I think. The steady arithmetical growth would indicate that there is no epidemic or that the numbers are lies, so far as I understand how epidemics work. My vote is for the second explanation.

I would not be surprised if millions have been infected and if tens of thousands are dying daily. We probably will not see how the disease truly spreads until countries such as Australia and Japan have more experience with it. Their stats I trust.

The decimation of the Chinese workforce may be the catalyst that undoes the Chinese Miracle. As people stay home, or in the grave, from work, industrial production will fall, materials orders will decline and markets may have to source other countries for goods formerly bought from China. I can’t see this as reducing the average quality of manufactured goods.

Roses by Leila Meacham

Not so long ago, I finished reading Roses by Leila Meacham --- the first book of hers I have read. I guess that if the tale was from Iceland or Norway we would call it a saga. It’s a multi-generational story about inter-connected Texas families. I have read other books of its style, but this was one of the best. I rank it up there almost with Diane Pearson’s Csardas and The Tontine by Thomas Costain.  

If you like losing yourself in another world where nobody is all good or all bad and where are the occurrences of uncontrived surprises, you might like the book.  

Globalism vs. Nationalism: Which Side Will Climate Change Favor?

My early years were spent in a world of national borders that were jealously guarded. Free trade was not the norm. Visas were required in many situations in which they no longer are. This was from a trend that perhaps began with the Peace of Westphalia. Then multi-national corporations went on the ascendant and we saw corporate budgets that were larger than that of most nations. National barriers broke down in the interest of global trade. The New World Order became an appellate for the phenomenon.

At the same time, I noticed a tendency towards decentralization --- the Swissification of the world. Even decades ago, it was more common for a Swiss resident to know the name of their mayor than of their president. We saw Yugoslavia break up into several nations. We saw the Quebec referenda. Of course, if Quebec separatists had managed to pull off the extrication of their province from Canada, Canada would not have survived any better than partitioned Pakistan did when India separating its two parts (which are now Bangladesh and Pakistan). We saw the USSR (do young people today even know what that term means?) break up into many nations. Today we see the extremes of walls between nations: the one Hungary has erected the length of its border with Serbia, the 700 kilometer wall between Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and the developing wall between the USA and Mexico. These are high tech walls with motion detectors and modern responses.

So we have had the two conflicting forces of nationalism and globalism. A struggle of power interests. It seems to me that climate change has the potential to affect the struggle. I don’t doubt that climate is changing, although I do doubt that man has much to do with it. He has polluted his planet, but I do not think he has caused his climate. Nevertheless, climate is changing. In some cases, the effects will be extreme, either because of accelerating global warming, or because of a quick reversal into a new ice age as solar activity shifts. I anticipate mass migrations as coastlines or frost lines change and as agricultural zones shift. National borders will be tested as perhaps never before. Will they harden (along with hearts)? Or will they soften? I suspect the former, typified by the antecedent Voyage of the Damned.

The twentieth century had its two world wars, but they were not the first ones. The nineteenth century’s Napoleonic Wars was a time of world war.  The Seven Years War of the eighteenth century was a world war. The seventeenth had The Thirty Years War.  I think it unlikely that the present century will escape a large scale war. What will be its consequences?  What weapons will be used?  Will is coincide with new epidemics? We could be in for a rough ride. People who are adaptable and who have learned that happiness is not a function of circumstances but of response to the circumstances will fare the best it seems to me.