I Spent A Day In The Coronavirus-Driven Feeding Frenzy Of N95 Mask Sellers And Buyers...

[intrepidity]

I Spent A Day In The Coronavirus-Driven Feeding Frenzy Of N95 Mask Sellers And Buyers And This Is What I Learned

By the end of the day, roughly 280 million masks from warehouses around the U.S. had been purchased by foreign buyers and were earmarked to leave the country, according to the broker — and that was in one day.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2020/03/30/i-spent-a-day-in-the-coronavirus-driven-feeding-frenzy-of-n95-mask-sellers-and-buyers-and-this-is-what-i-learned/#5329cafa56d4

HOLEE HELL GO READ THE WHOLE THING!!!

[msongs]

1. ivanka will export them to china then reimport them to the usa and make a huge profit nt

[BComplex]

2. This is so friggin' disgusting. A REAL president could handle this in 45 seconds of issuing

orders, and protect ALL Americans.

But Fox "news" and their buddy, Putin gave us trump.

On edit: I wonder if trump knew Forbes was coming out with this article today, and maybe that's why he was acting more somber, and Pence more on point.

[lapfog_1]

3. set of 10 masks plus a small bottle of rubbing alcohol and wipes

is $80EU in Romania.

A little over $100 USD

[Squinch]

4. Trump should be tarred, put on a rail and marched through the streets.

[Baitball Blogger]

5. Ain't capitalism grand? Not in the case of a global epidemic.

Can we all agree with that? Can we make that a definitive, unquestionable fact of human life? The capitalist model fails in a situation when everyone is trapped in the same sinking boat with no lifeboats available.

And for that, we have the Defense Protection Act, which anyone, outside of an abhorrent capitalist grifter, would have enacted by now.

[Hortensis]

7. No. Without capitalism, we'd be too poor to produce all

the things needed needed, even with central government converting collective factories to the task. AND, judging by all who came before, we'd be massively corrupt and badly run.

There's a reason EVERY experiment in socialism either collapsed into dreadfully impoverished, oppressive authoritarian states OR reintroduced capitalism to stave off that collapse. Like China, which now claims to have a socialist "market" economy but most economists define as state capitalism as China's rescue has progressed.

And to repeat, again and again, EUROPEAN NATIONS ALL HAVE CAPITALIST ECONOMIES, same as us. Where we have one big socialized system for providing national services, the VA, most have more. But they're ALL paid for by the capitalist profit engine.

[Baitball Blogger]

9. We're way beyond those basic, primitive comparisons.

America is a European style socialism, which looks for a balance. Let's begin there.

What we're dealing with today, in this time in history, is a situation where Republicans sought to deregulate everything to give deference to private industry. And now we're seeing how they did it easily by rejecting their governing responsibilities to protect the public good vs. capitalist, private property rights. Or the right to make a buck during a global disaster.

We lost the balance a long time ago. It probably began with Reagan. We had other presidents who understood what we were risking by ignoring the importance of public institutions. We need to get back to balance.

[Hortensis]

10. Oh...for truth's sake. Neither America NOR Europe are

"European-style" socialism. That's not even close to being true.

Speaking of history, everyone should get acquainted with the real thing because lies can't sucker informed people.

Politicians lie to deceive and hide the truth until it's too late. Why else would they?

Think.

[Baitball Blogger]

11. Hortensis, your broad brush of socialism to describe America is less helpful.

We both know that America is not a socialist country in the pure sense. That's right-wing propaganda. We have qualities of both socialism and capitalism. And my generation, perhaps for the first time in their lives, are seeing the merits of socialism, especially in the health industry. There will be changes because of what is happening today. I predict that Americans will be ready for a socialist model in our public health industry.

[Hortensis]

12. Part of that is true, some services do well socialized, and

I believe Americans would accept socializing more federal programs, such as Social Security and Medicare, both capitalism-based now. I'm for creating some socialized programs within our capitalism-based nation that are supported by the will of the people. Democracy.

But that's not Sanders' goal or he'd be able to harness the vast power of truth instead of having to sucker people into believing lies. And I'm implacably opposed to what he's lying to cover up.

Sanders' 1930's-60s style socialism is NOT "really what we already have." His dream would require massive changes to our lives and abandonment of important individual freedoms, and THAT's what he's lying to hide. And it WOULD require revolution. The real, imposed against the will of the people, thing. Because Sanders can't give his real dream away.

In contrast, with national support by the people choosing Democrats to control congress and the WH, we will legislate the delayed public option into the ACA for the people who want it (me!). And, if there is strong national support, we can socialize another program or two that the people themselves want. You know, government of, by and for the people.

Btw, Sanders himself has said that HIS dream would require us to accept enormous societal adjustments, but that afterward we'd have become better people.

Think what that means.

I have, long before he appeared on the scene, and thank you, no. Even if I were interested in living in a socialist state, Sanders' ideas about what make people and society good are very different from mine. To me "better" is not at all the same as forced to become more dutiful and obedient to the collective good because individual freedoms have become far more limited.

[ecstatic]

6. Greedy, disgusting traitors.

And this is all trump's fault. We wouldn't even be in this moment had he not disbanded the pandemic team.

[uponit7771]

8. +1,

[Ilsa]

13. I hope those brokers have considered they may have a loved one at risk.

In one fictional universe, a young hero with newly acquired powers ignores an opportunity to do the right thing (stop a criminal). Of course, within several scenes the criminal kills a loved one of the new hero. He lives with the grief and regret of not observing ethics and responsibility.

Greed is valued over ethics and social responsibility in Trump World.