Bear Pit: now the sole domicile of politics at LuLa

[Alan Klein]

Here is a report card from Forbes on Trump's tariff based approach to dealing with China trade.


"Donald Trump may believe his trade agenda is a success, but a new analysis gives his administration’s trade policies poor marks. The analysis finds the Trump administration’s policy of raising tariffs and misusing U.S. trade laws have harmed consumers, disrupted supply chains and failed to achieve objectives that are important to the United States."



https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2020/10/29/trump-trade-policy-gets-failing-grades/

We're having an economic war with China.  Wars aren't won immediately.  If we gave up on our seven-year long War of Independence with the British after four years, we'd still be flying the Union Jack.  Time takes time. 

So how should Biden handle the Chinese?  Do you think he's going to allow them to hit us with tariffs on our products and drop tariffs on theirs? Do you think Biden will allow them to keep stealing our intellectual property?   He may be a Democrat, but he's still an American.  He's not going to reverse Trump's policy lightly.  On the other hand, he cancelled the XL pipeline costing Americans 10,000 great paying jobs at a time of economic crisis and unemployment, going against unions.  So maybe he really is senile.  Now that was a dumb move.

[faberryman]

You said it won't be until the Spring, at least.

I don't remember anyone around here saying that. Maybe some other people somewhere did.

[faberryman]

We're having an economic war with China.

Not really. Just countries jockeying for the most favorable trading conditions.

So how should Biden handle the Chinese?  Do you think he's going to allow them to hit us with tariffs on our products and drop tariffs on theirs?

American firms are voluntarily signing technology transfer agreements with China in order to gain access to China's markets. American companies sign the agreements because they deem it more beneficial for them to gain access to China's markets than to retain their intellectual property. If they don't want their technology to be "stolen", they should stop signing those agreements, and look elsewhere for markets for their goods and services.

That is not to say that China does not engage in industrial espionage. Like all countries, they do. That is a separate problem entirely, and one not easily addressable in the context of trade negotiations.

[chez]

You can't have it both ways.  You guys said Trump will never get the vaccine ready by the end of 2020.  You said it won't be until the Spring, at least.  Now you're twisting it claiming the science was there, yada yada. He got lucky. 

Warp Speed worked.  Would it really hurt your ego to admit it?

Trump loves to take credit for things he has nothing to do with. Why do you think vaccines from all over the world were developed within basically the same timeframe. Trump's warp speed developed the Russian and Chinese vaccines as well as the British one? Maybe it had nothing to do with warp speed, but everything to do with existing scientific methods that were developed many years ago.

Rather than believing your fearless leader, try doing a bit of research.

[jeremyrh]

The thing we have to be careful about is letting the government choose winners and losers.  If they select certain concepts over others and finance them, a huge mistake could be made.  A lot of it is political in nature which is a terrible way to advance technology.  You could go off on the wrong track for years before you realize there was a better way.   Better systems are developed when the free market organically selects the best methods. 

You keep repeating this religeous mantra, but repetition doesnt make it true.  The free market chose VHS whereas Betamax was a better system.  The free market makes local short term decisions.  When green energy gets mainstrteam it will be because governments gave it a help over the first hurdles.

[Manoli]

Warp Speed worked.  Would it really hurt your ego to admit it?

On the face of it, it appears you're confused over what exactly Warp Speed is or was.

The Pifzer vaccine, co-developed with German biotechnology firm BioNTech, became the first in the U.S. to receive emergency use authorization from the FDA. Pfizer received no funding from Trump and BioNtech received approximately $450m from the German Federal Government.

The Pfizer agreement would finance the production and nationwide delivery of 100 million doses of the vaccine, should it be approved by the FDA.

For the record, the CEO/Pres of Pfizer is a Greek, who resisted all of Trump's early overtures and the duo behind the BioNTech mRNA technique are Turkish-Germans.  Neither Pfizer nor BioNTech took funds from the government to develop its vaccine, only to manufacture and distribute it when and if approved.

[faberryman]

Well I skimmed through their video.

The problem with skimming is that it is easy to miss a lot of the details.

[faberryman]

On the other hand, he cancelled the XL pipeline costing Americans 10,000 great paying jobs at a time of economic crisis and unemployment, going against unions.  So maybe he really is senile.  Now that was a dumb move.

It depends on what your objectives and priorities are.

[faberryman]

You also didn't address their changing the protocol to include younger people who will draw off shots originally intended for older people.  Another non-study and procedure that's gumming up the works and preventing old people to get first shots.

So what? I'll ask again. What makes your life so valuable that you should get a vaccine before that of a little girl. Sure, you are old and have comorbidities and more likely to die if you catch COVID than a little girl. So what?

[Alan Klein]

Trump loves to take credit for things he has nothing to do with. Why do you think vaccines from all over the world were developed within basically the same timeframe. Trump's warp speed developed the Russian and Chinese vaccines as well as the British one? Maybe it had nothing to do with warp speed, but everything to do with existing scientific methods that were developed many years ago.

Rather than believing your fearless leader, try doing a bit of research.

There you go again wanting it both ways.  So why were you blaming him for not doing enough it it was up to others to get us there? You even said you wouldn't take the vaccine because he's involved.  Either he was involved or he wasn't. Make up your mind.

[faberryman]

You even said you wouldn't take the vaccine because he's involved.

I don't remember anyone around here saying they wouldn't take the vaccine because Trump was involved.

[Alan Klein]

You keep repeating this religeous mantra, but repetition doesnt make it true.  The free market chose VHS whereas Betamax was a better system.  The free market makes local short term decisions.  When green energy gets mainstrteam it will be because governments gave it a help over the first hurdles.

There are other factors that affect the free market besides better and best. Cost is one.  Monopoly is another.  If I remember correctly, Betamax was an exclusive Sony product.  They had the patent. Of course, they wanted their design to become the standard. Customers, however,  didn't want to get tied into one manufacturer like people are stuck with Adobe and Photoshop.  Can you imagine if we only had Apple computers?   You're at their mercy. 

Additionally, the green energy market is way advanced today.  There are many new processes, designs, and products under development. Look how Space X cornered the market on returning boosters to land and be re-used. It would be foolhardy for government to favor one over another any more than it would be smart to have the government pick the next camera design that comes out. 

[Alan Klein]

On the face of it, it appears you're confused over what exactly Warp Speed is or was.

The Pifzer vaccine, co-developed with German biotechnology firm BioNTech, became the first in the U.S. to receive emergency use authorization from the FDA. Pfizer received no funding from Trump and BioNtech received approximately $450m from the German Federal Government.

The Pfizer agreement would finance the production and nationwide delivery of 100 million doses of the vaccine, should it be approved by the FDA.

For the record, the CEO/Pres of Pfizer is a Greek, who resisted all of Trump's early overtures and the duo behind the BioNTech mRNA technique are Turkish-Germans.  Neither Pfizer nor BioNTech took funds from the government to develop its vaccine, only to manufacture and distribute it when and if approved.

You really don't know what Warp Speed is and how much in billions it financed to develop, distribute, and coordinate the activities.  This was a private-public relationship to get the job done.  Each side played a part.

You're cherry-picking what one company did. If the US government did nothing, why do the Democrats want to spend another $25 billion getting more vaccines developed, distributed, and injected?  If the government is accomplishing nothing, I'd rather save my money and let the companies spend the money.  Check the link and read about the entire process.  Keep an open mind.
https://www.hhs.gov/coronavirus/explaining-operation-warp-speed/index.html

[Peter McLennan]

Customers, however,  didn't want to get tied into one manufacturer...

That's not why VHS won over Betamax. VHS wrote an inferior signal to tape, meaning that tapes could hold more.  In addition, VHS players were of inferior construction, hence had a slightly cheaper upfront purchase price. Customers chose cheaper tape and player costs and inferior performance over the demonstrably better Sony system. It had precisely zero to do with "walled garden" consumer politics.

This is very easy to research, Alan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videotape_format_war#:~:text=The%20main%20determining%20factor%20between,also%20of%20higher%2Dquality%20construction.

[Alan Klein]

On the face of it, it appears you're confused over what exactly Warp Speed is or was.

The Pifzer vaccine, co-developed with German biotechnology firm BioNTech, became the first in the U.S. to receive emergency use authorization from the FDA. Pfizer received no funding from Trump and BioNtech received approximately $450m from the German Federal Government.

The Pfizer agreement would finance the production and nationwide delivery of 100 million doses of the vaccine, should it be approved by the FDA.

For the record, the CEO/Pres of Pfizer is a Greek, who resisted all of Trump's early overtures and the duo behind the BioNTech mRNA technique are Turkish-Germans.  Neither Pfizer nor BioNTech took funds from the government to develop its vaccine, only to manufacture and distribute it when and if approved.

According to the link I provided above, the US government provided an upfront payment of $1.95 billion to Pfizer.   So who's facts are right? It really doesn't matter with the one company regardless.  Leave them out of the equation.  Read all the process in the link to see how much the US government did to move the process to a quick completion, far earlier than ever expected. Meanwhile, all those Democrats like Biden and Harris said they would have to think hard before they would take "Trump's" vaccines.  Yet, they and their non-government spouses were first on line to get them ahead of everyone else.  What phonies.

July 22: HHS announced up to $1.95 billion in funds to Pfizer for the large-scale manufacturing and nationwide distribution of 100 million doses of their vaccine candidate. The federal government will own the 100 million doses of vaccine initially produced as a result of this agreement, and Pfizer will deliver the doses in the United States if the product successfully receives FDA EUA or licensure, as outlined in FDA guidance, after completing demonstration of safety and efficacy in a large Phase 3 clinical trial, which began July 27th.

[faberryman]

There are other factors that affect the free market besides better and best. Cost is one.  Monopoly is another.  If I remember correctly, Betamax was an exclusive Sony product.  They had the patent. Of course, they wanted their design to become the standard. Customers, however,  didn't want to get tied into one manufacturer like people are stuck with Adobe and Photoshop.  Can you imagine if we only had Apple computers?   You're at their mercy.

That's why I bought a VHS deck. I didn't want Sony to have a monopoly. The same is true today. People buy Android smartphones so Apple won't have a monopoly. There is just no other explanation for why anyone would buy an Android smartphone. Then I asked my neighbor why he bought an iPhone. He said he didn't want Google to get a monopoly with Android. Now I am confused about which phone to buy. Should Apple or Google have the monopoly.

[Alan Klein]

That's not why VHS won over Betamax. VHS wrote an inferior signal to tape, meaning that tapes could hold more.  In addition, VHS players were of inferior construction, hence had a slightly cheaper upfront purchase price. Customers chose cheaper tape and player costs and inferior performance over the demonstrably better Sony system. It had precisely zero to do with "walled garden" consumer politics.

This is very easy to research, Alan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videotape_format_war#:~:text=The%20main%20determining%20factor%20between,also%20of%20higher%2Dquality%20construction.

Ok, so I don;t remember all the facts from 50 years ago.  But that doesn't;t change my point.  Free markets are the best process.  For a lot of reasons. There were even claims that VHS had more pornography on them pushing that format, although denied.  I said cost was a factor in the free market.  You're just confirming that cost was the main factor. That's how the free market works.  Not everyone can afford a Leica.  So the market selected the cheaper VHS methods even though it was an inferior method to Betamax.   Here's my original post for you to read.

There are other factors that affect the free market besides better and best. Cost is one. Monopoly is another.  If I remember correctly, Betamax was an exclusive Sony product.  They had the patent. Of course, they wanted their design to become the standard. Customers, however,  didn't want to get tied into one manufacturer like people are stuck with Adobe and Photoshop.  Can you imagine if we only had Apple computers?   You're at their mercy. 

Additionally, the green energy market is way advanced today.  There are many new processes, designs, and products under development. Look how Space X cornered the market on returning boosters to land and be re-used. It would be foolhardy for government to favor one over another any more than it would be smart to have the government pick the next camera design that comes out. 

[Manoli]

According to the link I provided above, the US government provided an upfront payment of $1.95 billion to Pfizer.   .

No , they did not nor does the word 'upfront' appear anywhere in the passage you just misquoted.

July 22: HHS announced up to $1.95 billion in funds to Pfizer for the large-scale manufacturing and nationwide distribution of 100 million doses of their vaccine candidate. The federal government will own the 100 million doses of vaccine initially produced as a result of this agreement, and Pfizer will deliver the doses in the United States if the product successfully receives FDA EUA or licensure, as outlined in FDA guidance, after completing demonstration of safety and efficacy in a large Phase 3 clinical trial, which began July 27th.

The FDA granted approval Dec 11th, (IIRC).

[Alan Klein]

No , they did not nor does the word 'upfront' appear anywhere in the passage you just misquoted.

The FDA granted approval Dec 11th, (IIRC).

The Federal government offered to purchase $1.9 billion from them.  If someone offers you that, you'd get the product out pretty quick to earn the money.  That's the incentive to work faster.  IF the government didn't offer them big bucks, they would have taken the usual years to develop a vaccine.

[chez]

There you go again wanting it both ways.  So why were you blaming him for not doing enough it it was up to others to get us there? You even said you wouldn't take the vaccine because he's involved.  Either he was involved or he wasn't. Make up your mind.

Lots of BS spewing from you here. Where did I say I wouldn't take the vaccine...pure BS Alan. As far as Trump not doing enough...well his mocking wearing masks, disregarding social distancing and egging on people to disregard lockdown orders and go out to party as usual are all examples of the idiot not doing enough...in fact doing harm...and here you sit with over 400,000 dead.

Alan, can you tell me exactly what Trump did to speed up the development of the vaccine?