Well quite. We routinely overblow acute risks and ignore chronic ones.

Yes. Bio terrorism will get a big boost!

Well perhaps this is a kind of teaser trailer to what it would take to actually "save" the planet, or at least postpone the inevitable collapse of society due to climate change.

Tom Hanks " coming out"!

https://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/ich-hab...a-747145941985

Just picked up this thread. Predictions the second half of 2020:
Civil war in the USA
Northern EU bails out southern EU
Eastern EU is cast adrift and picked up by Putin for a song
Chinese economy tanks
Global warming continues in spite of localised air pollution falling
Australian politicians undergo a rebirth as feely touchy (at 2 meters distance) greenies.
Multiple vaccines against viruses becoming the norm

And NZ?

Last time I remember kids were already taking "hexa-vaccines". Multiple has been the norm for a quite a while.

Yes. Bushwick is coming

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4720702/

"Bio terrorism" is practiced by the big dogs. Small countries need to produce most of their vaccines and medicines and other medical stuff. Some are able. Or maybe we must wait for China/Russia/etc to save us...

Yes, we Kiwis are only beaten by the Canadians for a kind of smug belief that we do it right.
But I am dusting off my passport and getting the waka ready as there may be no more flights

To fly to NZ or out? You guys are funnier in your smugness, btw.

What is waka? Can I say Kiwis or only you can say Kiwis..

Fly to Thanks.
A waka is a maori canoe, the first polynesian settlers arrived by waka.
We are happy to be called Kiwis. The fruit is a Kiwifruit (or chinese gooseberry). We use also use Kiwi to refer to the bird but the context normally makes it clear what is being referred to

President Macron said in his address to the nation last night that supply chains will have to become more French following the Coronavirus outbreak. Another signal that globalism will decline.

I'm pretty sure he refers to France, but he will be up in his arms if other countries in the EU will start doing the same things. He'll invoke freedom of goods and capitals etc. He's done that before.
He'll protect all the French investments - rest assured.

lol

They have no alternative to "globalism" for the moment, this is just for the public who needs some nationalistic propaganda right now. Same as Italy. It's funny, some of us are amused.

As for those who honestly believe EU will collapse as a result of this pandemic...here's something for you. It won't. They need it. There's no alternative to it for the moment. This nationalistic masquarades are just for the public.

Well look at that, we may fundamentally disagree on other things, but on this one I'm with you - it's the perfect playground for nationalist and authoritarian aholes, and it works beaaaautifully. It's concerning on a whole other level though. It does work in the short term and people actually buy that crap.

Also I guess MAGA, eh? I'm wondering what the consequences on the Trump "administration" will be. On the one hand, I of course want him gone as far and as quickly as possible, for all I care they can send him to the moon on a one-way ticket. A part of me wants to see him get a second term to try to clean up this goddamn mess, even though the flipside of that is that there's a real chance that this will turn into an authoritarian-inspired even bigger mess of unprecedented scale (God knows there's been enough of those tendencies already and as of yesterday, he seems to think he has absolute and unchecked authority - someone needs to inform him that the US is not a dictatorship - yet). Large-scale job loss has a way of leading to authoritarian, racist, nationalist regimes, as well all probably understand by now. I can see it go either way, if lagging indicators such as unemployment rates soar for a longer period of time and right into election period - which is extremely likely - he probably won't be re-elected and a Democrat can clean up the mess.

The EU, however, has proven itself largely irrelevant and that continues to be the best case scenario. It will probably sort-of survive, but mainly because someone (obviously Germany) will need to bail out the bankrupt Southern countries to avoid a complete breakdown in Europe with much worse consequences. So yeah, there's that...

Well..I don't mean to discredit his heroism but could he have said anything else? The borders are shut and will remain so for a while. Without being too political here or thinking he's just being populistic. I predict an EU/Schengen push for open borders that will not be so well accepted.

As far as I know Merkel has recently said something about Germany not willing to pay off other countries' debts, but it is very possible she might take a U turn and review her opinion. She's also under pressure - first and foremost the pressures coming from the business environment (Kapital uber alles) and only second, third from their own population. But honestly, I'm not so sure about Germany bailing out yet again the bankrupt South.
And while Germany has an alternative to EU (yes they do), they.....or others - don't.

The ugly part has been exposed now - it is more a union of dependancies and less a union of solidarity. Solidarity with all not only with the eternally bankrupt South.

Well given particularly Germany's original, well, ambitions that led to the EU, I'm not sure they'll have much choice. Unless of course they turn away from that ambition, which I guess could indeed happen.

It appears though that Italy has just turned down 39bn from the ESM. That's, uhm, clever?!

That part of you is really worrying, because it is a sentiment that one hears often. Support the old style republican party if you want to, but Trump supporters are dangerous mix who all think they can use him to achieve their own ends. I think they are kidding themselves. Trump has American blood on his hands, spilt within the USA. Not since the civil war has the USA been so divided. I grew up watching the Vietnam protests, Martin Luther King, civil right marches, Watergate........these are nothing to the problems facing the USA today. A hopelessly inefficient health system tied too tightly to middle-class employment. An ever deepening divide between the haves and the have-nots etc.etc Trump will do nothing to address these problems.

No need to be worried.

The Americans can fix this for themselves in November.
There are no amount of excuses in the world (vote rigging, fake news, the voting system, voter suppression, etc, etc) if they vote Trump in again, except that the American people want him in.

Oh I'm completely aware and I don't want him to get a second term. He shouldn't even have gotten a first one, ever.

Given this mess is the first one he had to face that wasn't one of his own doing, one can only hope even the last idiotic supporter will see the insane level of incompetence he displays, not to mention his dictator-adjacent rhetoric. If he did get a second term, it would indeed unravel. Then a Democrat would need to clean up the even bigger mess. And that would lead to even more beautiful conflict in an already deeply divided country.

The timing isn't too bad, 4 years is enough for a Democrat to clean up this crap. I feel bad though for whoever has to inherit this (well Biden I guess), which is why I said a part of me wants to see the orange man try to clean it up - though again of course he won't be able to, so the consequences would be even worse. Crappy all around no matter what.