Generational Dynamics World View

[pbrower2a]

Here we go:

For those who despair of the offensive, catastrophic Presidency of Donald Trump, this gives hope. 

https://medium.com/@mishaley/how-history...04e6ac19bd

I see Donald Trump as Jimmy Carter without the intelligence, integrity, moral compass, and personal decency: without those, Jimmy Carter would have been an unspeakable nightmare as President. 




Maybe it is not comfortable to compare Barack Obama to Richard Nixon; if anything I would more likely compare him to Dwight Eisenhower for being similar in temperament and style and having squeaky-clean administrations. Obama proves to have been more of a hawk than Eisenhower -- then again, Osama bin Laden was still an infant when "the torch has been passed to a new generation". It could be the difference between a Civic type who thought wrongly that he could get away with almost anything (Nixon) as long as he got the desired results and a mature Reactive (Obama) who knew that he could get away with practically nothing -- as House and in turn Senate majorities for the other, increasingly-authoritarian Party made clear. That is a generational difference.  

Going back to the establishment of the Constitutional union:




The Founding era may be unclear, but it is safe to say that 

(1) each political era ranges from 32 to 48 years
(2) of them make a generational cycle out of Howe and Strauss
(3) each political era begins with either great promise (Awakening era) or great threat (Crisis era)
(4) the last leader of the era is a tired or pathological expression of what started the era.  

So Washington establishes the norms of the Republic and John Quincy Adams is as far as it can go before a populist, Jacksonian era that never tolerates a meaningful challenge to the cancer of chattel slavery. Jackson was a colorful populist and James Buchanan tried to keep the Republic from (imploding? exploding?) by appeasing the slave interests (Hey, Northerners -- you can keep your liberal ideas, but you must enforce the reality of slavery by arresting fugitive slaves!) Lincoln won the Civil War and restored the Union by treating the defeated South in as kindly a way as possible; the industrial basis that gave the North a compelling edge in the Civil War fostered the rise of Gilded Age plutocrats who fostered economic and technological progress that those plutocrats arrogated for themselves in a winner-take-all system. By the time of Teddy Roosevelt, America needed to drop its social myopia and its tolerance for bad business (child labor, horrible patent medicines, free-for-all for polluters)... and got the change. Had TR not done that, then maybe Taft would. Theodore Roosevelt's modest reforms petered out with the return of politics of the disastrous Harding-Coolidge-Hoover return to a "New Era" best compared to another Gilded Age with a bit more gilding. That Little Gilded Age ended with something commonplace in the Gilded Age -- a speculative boom that led to the very nasty economic meltdown that always ensues. (Paradoxically FDR took much from the Progressive Era and enhanced it, so he may be more a throwback to Theodore Roosevelt than to Woodrow Wilson... but that is practically a quibble.

The oddity about Nixon seemed that he was more a throwback to Teddy Roosevelt in his agenda than to Gilded Age or New Gilded Age politics. Reagan started America in earnest into the neoliberal ethos in which enrichment of economic elites would become the sole economic purpose while deprecation of the intellect (OK, "Bright Boy" Carter couldn't solve everything, so if people want to believe in young-earth creationism, snake-handling, "Flood geology", and a mythological history of America such as that the Founding Fathers were closet Fundamentalists even if the word Fundamentalism did not appear in the lexicon until 1926 and that the Founding Fathers were often best described as Deists) -- fine. If one wanted to be a dolt in the Individualist Era, then such was as much an expression of individualism as was indulging oneself like an aristocrat on executive compensation... or having a huge audio-video collection.

If Dubya seems like a telescoping of the three awful Presidencies of Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover into eight years with a costly and inconclusive war thrown in, and Obama seems to have tried to be another FDR... Trump is beyond any question a moral and political disaster. Trump is Ronald Reagan (even down to possible senility) with far more personal cruelty, less regard for legal niceties, more contempt for learning and expertise, and no loyalty except to his own self esteem. Trump has been appeasing some nasty dictators overseas much as Fillmore, Pierce, and Buchanan appeased the slave-owning planters; I do not see that going well. 

With the exception of McKinley (who came close to being a one-term President, if through assassination instead of electoral defeat), the last Presidents in these cycles are one-term Presidents, Presidents associated with something tired (J Q Adams, Carter), unworkable (Buchanan, Hoover) or corrupt (Trump). Corruption and incompetence on the scale of Donald Trump is rare at the federal level in America; even at the state level it is not good for staying in office. We have no precedent for Trump for his scale of corruption, cruelty, and incompetence. 

Maybe I lack the imagination to see how Trump can redeem himself and establish himself as a pattern for the next forty or so years... but it is now about time for a President who can break some of the objectionable patterns of American life, make life good for more Americans, and create a consensus that completely repudiates what the Individualist Era became -- starting with a flawed, if transformational President and ending with a sick parody of the transformational President of the era. America will want an antithesis of Trump very soon if not already. The generational constellation is ill suited for any maintenance of exploitative individualism of the Trump style.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 01-Feb-2020 World View: Education

richard5za Wrote:> Very interesting perspective, John. Thank you for the detailed
> response. Yes, I agree totally with your analysis of Northern
> Ireland. And the Scots don't like the English at all, historically
> and in more recent times the English have more successful
> economically. Years ago I was on business in Scotland and as a
> South African I was being royally entertained but I did need to
> agree quite often that the English were no good. I had very
> similar experiences in Wales and Dublin.

> I didn't realise that the American fault line had its routes in
> the Civil War, and that the Democrats were Southerners.
> Southerners have a (probably not true) reputation of being
> politically about 5 degrees to the right of Attila the Hun! And
> it really is the most successful country on the planet
> economically, and can afford to educate its people better than
> anyone else, so I suppose I expected a more enlightened attitude.

> But I suppose humans are humans everywhere.

Unfortunately, education has nothing to do with it. If Rwanda had
better schools, would the Hutus have killed fewer Tutsis?

Bashar al-Assad was educated in London and became an ophthalmologist.
Vladimir Putin is highly educated. And yet they're both committing
genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Arab Sunnis in Syria.

Aung San Suu Kyi is well-educated and a Nobel Peace Prize winner. And
yet, she's overseeing the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Rohingyas.

Xi Jinping and, in fact, most Chinese people are well-educated. But
they're still arresting, enslaving and killing Muslim Uighurs and
Kazakhs.

In addition, Buddhists and Christians are also beaten, jailed and
tortured if they claim to worship anyone but Xi Jinping. You'd think
that was a joke, but it's not a joke.

And today's Democrats are well-educated, but they're on the same path
anyway. Democrats have turned into crazed lunatics, on the one hand
demanding a suicidal Socialist agenda, and on the other hand totally
psychopathicly obsessed with hatred for Trump supporters. And we
haven't yet seen the worst of it.

So, unfortunately, being well-educated has nothing to do with it,
except that when you're well-educated then you know more ways to
torture and kill people, and you're more intellectually vacuous ways
of justifying your torture and killing.

[pbrower2a]

A brilliant, highly-educated person with sociopathic tendencies, like Josef Stalin, Benito Mussolini, or Joseph Goebbels, is far more dangerous than a dumb sociopath who 'only' does dumb crime such as auto theft or armed robbery. The dumb crook usually gets caught faster. A sociopath who has all the advantages of wealth, connections, and power -- let us say Harvey Weinstein -- can do far greater crime than someone not so privileged. Intelligence, education, and connections do not make one safer if one is evil. Perhaps those might give one cause to be honest because the rewards for legitimate achievement can be high. Then again, there is Bill Cosby, who couldn't pass up the opportunity to do date rape.

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 2-Feb-20 World View -- Wuhan coronavirus hits China's economy hard, threatens world economy

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Investors nervous as China's stock market to reopen on Monday
  
• Dangers of social unrest in China
  
• Effects of Wuhan coronavirus on global stock markets
  

****
**** Investors nervous as China's stock market to reopen on Monday
****


New York's annual Lunar New Year parade on January 25 (Getty)

Investors are nervously waiting to see what will happen on Monday,
when China's stock market reopens for the first time since the
beginning of the Lunar New Year celebrations. It closed down 3.1% on
January 23, and has been closed since then. It was supposed to open
last week on Thursday, but the opening was postponed until February 3
because of the Wuhan coronavirus crisis.

Taiwan's stock exchange did open on Thursday, and fell nearly 6%.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng stock market index also fell nearly 6%.

Worldwide there have been 14,000 confirmed cases, with 304 deaths.
That means that 2.1% of confirmed Wuhan coronavirus cases are ending
in death. Deaths from ordinary influenza are closer to 0.1%.

Not that there's been much of a Lunar New Year celebration this year.
Coronavirus is now present in every province of China.

China’s economy seems to be grinding to a halt. Sixteen cities in
China, with a combined population of more than 50 million people, are
on lockdown, and people are prevented from leaving. Shops and
restaurants in many cities are completely deserted, as people are
afraid to leave their homes.

The only exception seems to be long lines where people camp out for
hours to puchase protective face masks. They've been sold out
everywhere, but Chinese officials have announced that prisoners are
working day and night to make millions more face masks.

Tourism will be hit hard. Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and the
Philippines have stopped accepting visitors from China’s Hubei
province, and Russia and Mongolia have closed their borders with
China.

Many countries are imposing travel bans from China. On Saturday,
Australia and the United States joined Israel, Vietnam, Italy,
Philippines and Qatar to suspend flights from China. In the United
States, the government has put about 200 US citizens repatriated from
Wuhan under legal quarantine at March Air Reserve Base in Southern
California. The group includes State Department personnel, family
members, children and other Americans. It’s the first time such a
policy has been used in the US since the 1960s, when a quarantine
order was issued to stop the spread of smallpox.

****
**** Dangers of social unrest in China
****

The coronavirus crisis could cost China's economy $60 billion this
quarter. There were already millions of people unemployed, and the
coronavirus has forced many small businesses to close. Many
economists are concerned about massive layoffs in March, because of
loss of revenue in January and February, caused by a combination of
the Lunar New Year holiday and coronavirus.

Many businesses and factories have had to close temporarily to prevent
further spread of the disease. Where possible, people are being
ordered to work at home, but for many that will not be possible.

As long as the number of new cases increases every day, then the end
is not in sight. When the number of new cases peaks and starts to
decrease, that will signal the beginning of the end of the pandemic.
That's likely to occur as winter ends, around May or June in the
northern hemisphere. It may strike the southern hemisphere after
that.

Officials in China are hoping that the things will start to return to
"normal" by March 1, but there's a possibility that nothing will
change for two or three additional months.

This is exactly the kind of potential social unrest situation that the
paranoid Chinese Communist Party (CCP) thugs fear the most. Most
ordinary Chinese know that the CCP thugs are corrupt, incompetent, and
violent, but there's a kind of contract between them. The people will
keep quiet as long as there's plenty of employment and the livin' is
easy. When that deal begins to fall apart, a full-scale rebellion
becomes a possibility.

As I've written in the past, Hong Kong is on the fault line between
northern and southern China. ( "22-Jun-19 World View -- Hong Kong protests show historic split between northern and southern China"
)

Southeast China was the starting point of the last two massive Chinese
anti-government rebellions. Mao Zedong's Long March that led to the
Communist revolution civil war (1934-49) started in the south. The
massive Taiping Rebellion (1852-64), which was led by a Christian
convert who believed he was the son of God and the younger brother of
Jesus, began in the south and spread north.

The ethnic fault line between north and south is just as active today
as it ever was, and China is overdue for a new north-south rebellion.
So there's already massive unrest in Hong Kong, and now the country is
on the verge of large-scale unemployment. China has had massive
anti-government rebellions at regular intervales for millennia. It's
now been 71 years since the end of the last rebellion, and so China is
overdue for its next rebellion.

The CCP thugs are aware of this, and so the People's Bank of China
(PBOC), the country's central bank, has promised to flood the
financial markets with liquidity, and to increase spending in whatever
sectors it can.

Whether that will work remains to be seen. China spent huge amounts
of money to weather the financial crisis of ten years ago. China has
been spending massive amounts of money in many countries with its Belt
and Road Initiative (BRI). Even China has some limits on the amount
of money it can spend.

****
**** Effects of Wuhan coronavirus on global stock markets
****

There's been a discussion in the Generational Dynamics forum in the
last few days about whether this will be the trigger for a global
financial crisis and stock market crash, since Wall Street stocks are
in a huge bubble, bigger than 1929.

My response is that I don't think so. If you look back at previous
panics -- the 1929 panic, the 1987 false panic, and the flash crash of
a few years ago -- they were all completely unexpected. In other
words, you can't "expect" a panic. A panic is, almost by definition,
"unexpectable." Therefore, if a panic is now "expected," then it
can't occur now. So there might be a 20% stock market correction, but
not a full-scale financial panic.

However, another person has pointed out a flaw in my logic. Since the
panic is "expected," then it can't happen. Therefore, it's
"unexpected." Therefore it can happen. See how easy it is to tie
yourself up in knots?

At any rate, people investing in the stock market should be very
cautious these days. The stock market is in the biggest bubble in
world history, and so really anything can happen.

John Xenakis is author of: "World View: War Between China and Japan:
Why America Must Be Prepared" (Generational Theory Book Series, Book
2), June 2019, Paperback: 331 pages, with over 200 source references,
$13.99 https://www.amazon.com/World-View-Betwee...732738637/

Sources:

• Close shop, work remotely: Big business reacts to the coronavirus (Al-Jazeera, 28-Jan-2020)
  
• The coronavirus could cost China's economy $60 billion this quarter. Beijing will have to act fast to avert a bigger hit (CNN, 31-Jan-2020)
  
• China Then And Now: Why Coronavirus Is A Bigger Threat To The Global Economy Than Previous Outbreaks (Forbes, 1-Feb-2020)
  
• As Wuhan Coronavirus Drags on Chinese Markets, the World Economy Braces for a Slowdown (Time, 31-Jan-2020)
  
• The impact of the outbreak of the virus will also spread from China to around Asia and other parts of the world, analysts say. (US News, 31-Jan-2020)
  
• New coronavirus will likely push China to step up stimulus (CNBC, 31-Jan-2020)
  
• China’s unemployment risks surge as service providers bear the brunt of coronavirus outbreak (South China Morning Post, Hong Kong, 31-Jan-2020)
  
• Coronavirus: Chinese health experts warn patients can get reinfected (South China Morning Post, Hong Kong, 31-Jan-2020)
  
• Public warned of online scams and dubious products amid Hong Kong’s mask-buying frenzy as coronavirus fears continue (South China Morning Post, Hong Kong, 31-Jan-2020)
  
• China coronavirus could inflict more economic pain than Sars, analysts say (South China Morning Post, Hong Kong, 30-Jan-2020)
  
• Coronavirus impact on China’s manufacturing not ‘yet fully manifested’ even as factory output cools (South China Morning Post, Hong Kong, 31-Jan-2020)
  
• China coronavirus could hit Beijing’s ability to meet US trade war deal import demands (South China Morning Post, Hong Kong, 29-Jan-2020)
  
• Citi / Nomura / Coronavirus may hit China economy harder than SARS, warns Nomura (Market Watch, 30-Jan-2020)
  
• China travel bans spread despite WHO advice (Bangkok Post, 1-Feb-2020)
  
• US Adds New Coronavirus China Travel Ban (OneMileAtATime, 1-Feb-2020)

Related Articles:

• China's coronavirus threatens Xi Jinping's Mandate from Heaven (25-Jan-2020)
  
  
• UK-China war of words escalates sharply over Hong Kong riots (04-Jul-2019)
  
  
• Hong Kong protests show historic split between northern and southern China (22-Jun-2019)
  
  
• MIT criticizes 'toxic atmosphere' targeting Chinese students (30-Jun-2019)
  
  
• Xi Jinping invokes the 1840s Opium Wars to justify military action for China's 'rejuvenation' (21-Mar-2018)
  
  
• Xi Jinping's 'Socialism with Chinese characteristics' is identical to Hitler's National Socialism (24-Oct-2017)
  
  
• China bans Winnie The Pooh because Xi Jinping looks like him (18-Jul-2017)
  
  
• China repudiates its Hong Kong 'One Country, Two Systems' agreement with Britain (01-Jul-2017)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, China, Wuhan, Hubei, Coronavirus,
Lunar New Year, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Hang Seng,
Russia, Mongolia, Singapore, Philippines,
Vietnam, Israel, Italy,
Taiping Rebellion, White Lotus Rebellion,
Mao Zedong, Long March, Communist Revolution

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John J. Xenakis
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[John J. Xenakis]

** 02-Feb-2020 World View: Velocity of Money

I had an e-mail discussion with someone who is predicting inflation
from the coronavirus problem. I pointed out that people have been
predicting hyperinflation for 20 years, and it never happens because
of plummeting velocity of money that economists are too stupid to
understand. I pointed him to the St Louis Fed graph that I set up
several years ago on the St Louis Fed web site:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?categ..._id=366117

The issue is that it's Macroeconomics 1.01 that inflation is almost
impossible while velocity of money is falling, because the inflation
rate is proportional to the velocity of money.

So this morning I was browsing some other St. Louis Fed pages,
and I came across the following:

Quote:> M2 velocity and inflation

> Posted on August 21, 2014

> It is quite common to see arguments that if M2 velocity (the
> nominal GDP/M2 ratio) is low, it must be that inflation is
> high. While M2 velocity is currently at historical lows, inflation
> is clearly not high. Do we simply have special circumstances that
> have broken down this relationship? Is there such a relationship
> in the first place?

> https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2014/08/...n=fredblog

The blog goes on analyze the situation and to find that these
"arguments" turn out to be wrong. This is why I call economists
stupid. Of course, he has it backwards -- if velocity is low, then
inflation must be low.

What's really incredible is that this blog post appeared almost six
years ago, and it's still there! Is there nobody at the St. Louis Fed
who even understands what the velocity of money is, and what its
significance is?

Well, I did find another blog post that appeared about a week later.
It gives the actual formula and what it means:

Quote:> What Does Money Velocity Tell Us about Low Inflation in the U.S.?

> Monday, September 1, 2014

> MV = PQ ...

> According to this view, inflation in the U.S. should have been
> about 31 percent per year between 2008 and 2013, when the money
> supply grew at an average pace of 33 percent per year and output
> grew at an average pace just below 2 percent. Why, then, has
> inflation remained persistently low (below 2 percent) during this
> period?

> https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-econom...-in-the-us

I don't know if this was meant as a correction to the previous blog
post, but they appeared on different blogs, so it's possible
they weren't.

The graph that I created on the St Louis web site (URL shown above)
several years ago, pastes together two different series, one for
old data and one for new data. The graph also updates itself
automatically as time goes on.

Here's the screen shot that I posted in 2017:

• Velocity of money, 1919 to 2017 (St. Louis Fed Fred Graph
  #366117)

The annotations are, of course, mine.

I keep pointing out that most people today are unable to understand
computations using fourth-grade percentages, and that's why they're
completely baffled by what's happening in Iran. So now it's apparent
that economists don't understand elementary things like the velocity
of money. This is what happens when SAT scores have been falling for
decades, and colleges today teach nothing but women's studies and
sociology.

This ties in with the idiotic Socialist proposals being made today.
The proposals are being made by people too stupid to understand even
second grade math, and the so-called "experts" who describe them
didn't actually learn economics, but are taught from the Marx's
Capitalist Manifesto, which is completely useless except to make
Socialism proposals to idiots.

[Warren Dew]

(02-02-2020, 12:17 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: I keep pointing out that most people today are unable to understand
computations using fourth-grade percentages, and that's why they're
completely baffled by what's happening in Iran.  So now it's apparent
that economists don't understand elementary things like the velocity
of money.  This is what happens when SAT scores have been falling for
decades, and colleges today teach nothing but women's studies and
sociology.

This ties in with the idiotic Socialist proposals being made today.
The proposals are being made by people too stupid to understand even
second grade math, and the so-called "experts" who describe them
didn't actually learn economics, but are taught from the Marx's
Capitalist Manifesto, which is completely useless except to make
Socialism proposals to idiots.

And now there is pressure for affirmative action at the Fed, to reduce their math knowledge from a 3rd grade level to a 1st grade level.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 02-Feb-2020 World View: China's stock market opens

The Shanghai and Shenzen stock markets just opened a few minutes ago
for the first time since they were closed on January 23 for the Lunar
New Year celebrations, and then for the Wuhan coronavirus crisis.

Chinese stock markets fell 9% at the open, but then rebounded to 8%
down.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 03-Feb-2020 World View: Wuhan coronavirus story in the news

I've watched three different networks this morning, and here's what I
saw:

• On CNBC, the biggest story is the Wuhan coronavirus story, and
  its effects on investment strategies and other companies, particularly
  airline stocks.
  
  
• On Fox Business Network, the biggest story is the Wuhan
  coronavirus story and its effects on investors, and a secondary
  political story is Trump's State of the Union speech on Tuesday.
  
  
• On MSNBC, they specifically announced that there are just two big
  stories today: Trump's continuing impeachment trial and the Iowa
  caucasus. No mention at all of the Wuhan coronavirus story. These
  people truly live on a planet of their own.

[David Horn]

(02-03-2020, 10:22 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 03-Feb-2020 World View: Wuhan coronavirus story in the news

I've watched three different networks this morning, and here's what I saw:

• On CNBC, the biggest story is the Wuhan coronavirus story, and its effects on investment strategies and other companies, particularly airline stocks.
  
  
• On Fox Business Network, the biggest story is the Wuhan coronavirus story and its effects on investors, and a secondary political story is Trump's State of the Union speech on Tuesday.
  
  
• On MSNBC, they specifically announced that there are just two big stories today: Trump's continuing impeachment trial and the Iowa caucasus.  No mention at all of the Wuhan coronavirus story.  These people truly live on a planet of their own.
  

Forget Fox Business Network, and tell me what was playing on the Fox Network: do you what Fox and Friends?.  Of course the business networks focused on business issues.  The political networks focus on politics.  I assume their viewers expect that in both cases.

[David Horn]

(02-02-2020, 12:17 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 02-Feb-2020 World View: Velocity of Money

I had an e-mail discussion with someone who is predicting inflation from the coronavirus problem.  I pointed out that people have been predicting hyperinflation for 20 years, and it never happens because of plummeting velocity of money that economists are too stupid to understand.  I pointed him to the St Louis Fed graph that I set up several years ago on the St Louis Fed web site:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?category_id=&graph_id=366117

The issue is that it's Macroeconomics 1.01 that inflation is almost impossible while velocity of money is falling, because the inflation rate is proportional to the velocity of money.

You miss the point on velocity of money.  There are only two reason for that: declining demand and excessive money in circulation.  So which is it?  For my money (pun intended) the general lack of business investment is piled on top of huge deficits created by the Orange One and his minions.  No need to invest when the money just stays in your pocket.  That's not important to the Global Supply Chain (GSC).

Now what happens if the GSC is disrupted?  It's not a financial instrument or the product of one for that matter.  It operates on supply and demand, just like the economy used to before financializaton.  What happens if finished goods become hard-to-get?  After all, the GSC tends to be intermediate goods, as a whole, and when the lack of widgets to build things dries up, demand will pressure those finished goods suppliers to find new sources, and bid up the price of what's still there.

I don't think we know how messy that will be, unless it actually happens.  We've never had the GSC so dispersed and tied to just-in-time delivery.  Everey crsis is new, and "unexpected" until it happens.

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 4-Feb-20 World View -- China's Foreign Ministry blames America for coronavirus 'panic'

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• China's Foreign Ministry blames America for coronavirus 'panic'
  
• Social unrest in China
  
• The Timeline for the coming months
  
• The 'Black Swan' events after the Wuhan coronavirus
  

****
**** China's Foreign Ministry blames America for coronavirus 'panic'
****


China's premier Li Keqiang, wearing a green medical mask, meets hospital workers in Wuhan on January 29 (AP)

China's official figures are that there are more than 20,000 confirmed
cases of Wuhan coronavirus, and 426 deaths (2.1%).

Many people believe that those figures are low, that there are already
tens or hundreds of thousands of cases, many of them in rural areas
where they wouldn't be found, and some of them mild enough so that the
patient did not see any need to report it. If there are thousands more
cases, then the death rate will probably be lower than 2.1%.

50 million people are on lockdown, and are forebidden from leaving
their villages. 24 provinces and cities are on lockdown or near
lockdown (Anhui, Chongqing, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou,
Hebei, Heilonjiang, Henan, Hunan, Inner Mongolia, Jiangsu, Jiangxi,
Jilin, Liaoning, Ningxia, Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanghai, Shanxi, Suzhou,
Xi'an).

Factories in those provinces are being told not to restart operations
until at least February 10. So half of China is shut down, with more
than 80% of national GDP and 90% of exports.

One factory owner in Shandong said that he won't be allowed to open
unless he has a stock of two face masks for each worker every day. He
has 1,500 employees, so that's a lot of face masks.

So one might say that China is in a panic. Nonetheless, they're
refusing to permit American CDC officials to visit Wuhan to help out,
and they're refusing to allow the US to fly Americans in Wuhan back to
America.

China is being congratulated by many international officials for
taking the harsh steps necessary to stop the threat of the virus
spreading further. But on Monday, China became harshly critical of
the United States for imposing some travel restrictions on people
traveling to the US from China.

So China's foreign ministry spokesman on Monday said:

<QUOTE>"But as far as I know, the US government has not
provided any substantive help to the Chinese side yet. On the
contrary, it was the first to withdraw its consulate staff from
Wuhan, the first to suggest the partial withdrawal of embassy
staff, the first to announce a ban on entry by Chinese citizens
after the WHO made it clear that it doesn't recommend and even
opposes travel and trade restrictions against China. What the US
has done could create and spread panic. ...

[[Question]]: You just severely criticized the US government
response to the outbreak. We understand the second US flight is
experiencing delay - is it due to the lack of Chinese government
authorization as some say?

As I just said, the US was the first to evacuate its consulate
staff in Wuhan via charter flight. Further arrangements need to be
coordinated based on a variety of factors including Wuhan airport
capacity to receive supplies."<END QUOTE>

So China has taken its own draconian measures to prevent the spread of
the virus, but when the US and other countries do it, it causes panic.

The above statement could definitely be seen as a threat. China has a
standard playbook of reacting to a disliked policy of another country
by jailing citizens of that country for weeks or months without
charges. The statement seems to be demanding "substantive help" in
return for allowing American embassy personnel to leave Wuhan. No one
who follows the news from China on a regular basis can have any doubt
that this kind of extortion by the CCP thugs is a real possibility.
China is blocking access from US CDC officials who want to help, and
so it's not known what "substantive help" China is demanding.

****
**** Social unrest in China
****

When China's government says that the US is causing fear and panic
what's the purpose of that message? I doubt that any American care at
all what that latest name-calling China is directing at America this
week. So what's the point?

The fear and panic messages are directed at Chinese people, many of
whom are now blaming Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
for mishandling the crisis.

Concern is growing among the CCP thugs that the Wuhan coronavirus
health crisis could lead to enough social unrest to threaten the CCP
itself. At the very least, the crisis is the greatest political
challenge that Xi Jinping has faced since he took power in 2012.

There's a certain irrestible irony about this. Xi Jinping has for
years tried to protect himself by ordering an increasingly brutal and
violent crackdown on peaceful protesters, Christians, Buddhists,
Muslims, and Hong Kong activists, and now is facing a threat -- Wuhan
coronovirus -- that he can't control with his usual arsenal of
beatings, torture, rape and jailings. That fact alone should provide
some moral lessons to the dictator in fear of losing the Mandate from
Heaven.

Food prices are soaring in Wuhan, and pictures on social media show
empty shelves in supermarkets. Restrictions on transport are
hindering efforts to bring food and medicines into Wuhan, and as
popular discontent increases, CCP officials are desperately trying to
find the source of the photos of empty supermarket shelves.

The city of Wuhan has a population of 11 million, but as the virus
spread, millions of people fled the city before it was finally locke
down on January 24. Outside Wuhan, people from Wuhan are being told
that they're not welcome, and they're being barred from entering other
cities. Some places are refusing entry to cars from Hubei Province,
where Wuhan is located, and gas stations are refusing to fuel cars
with Wuhan license plates, while hotels are refusing to accommodate
guests from Hubei.

The threat of social unrest goes outside the borders of China.
Already there are reports that Chinese people in public are being
targeted with insults in some countries, because of increased
xenophobia caused by potential spread of coronavirus. If coronavirus
spreads to other countries, it could lead to social unrest in
countries, such as those with projects in China's Belt and Road
Initiative (BRI), where enclaves of Chinese cities have to coexist
with locals.

****
**** The Timeline for the coming months
****

It's clear from listening to analysts and experts that, at this time,
no one knows how long this crisis will continue, or whether it will
metastasize into a larger worldwise pandemic.

Those who hope that the worst will be over by March 1 are probably
dreaming or lying, but at least it is possible that by March 1 we'll
have answers to some important questions.

First, there have been no major outbreaks of the disease outside of
China. Most cases have been in people who had just returned from a
trip to China, rather than in someone who was affected by another
person outside of China. So by March 1, we should know whether there
are going to be outbreaks in any other countries.

This depends on a question that is still largely unanswered: How
easily can the disease pass from person to person? The crucial
question, still unanswered, is whether a person who has not yet shown
symptoms infect another person.

If a person has to show symptoms before he can infect another person,
then it should be possible to limit the spread in most countries.
Standard techniques of quaranteeing people with symptoms and using
contact tracing to find other possible cases should be effective.
However, if a person can infect another person without showing
symptoms, then these standard techniques won't work. By March 1, we
should know the answer to this question.

Either way, the best outcomes should be possible in America, the West,
and other developed countries. Underdeveloped countries in Africa,
and elsewhere probably don't have the medical infrastructure and resources
to contain an outbreak. The Ebola outbreak in eastern Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC) has been ongoing for months, and has been
mostly contained only with the help of a massive international
effort. If there are multiple outbreaks of coronavirus in multiple
countries, the resources to control them will not be available.

A related subject is that the Ebola breakout in eastern DRC is being
contained with the help of millions of doses of a vaccine for Ebola
that has recently been developed. Several companies are working on
a vaccine for Wuhan coronavirus, but development, testing and production
of such a vaccine will require over a year.

Globally, there are about 2,000 new cases of Wuhan coronavirus every
day. That number has not yet shown any sign of peaking and falling,
at this time. By March 1, it will hopefully have begun to do so.
So we should know by March 1 whether that is happening.

Some analysts are saying that we should know within a week or two.
Chinese cities with large outbreaks were locked down on January 24,
and there is a two-week incubation period. Therefore, according to
this reasoning, within the next week or two the number of new cases
should start falling. We shall see.

Another thing that we don't know is whether the virus can spread
easily only in winter, and will be blocked by warm summer weather. If
so, then the pandemic should be over by May or June, although it may
reappear in the southern hemisphere after that.

****
**** The 'Black Swan' events after the Wuhan coronavirus
****

The Wuhan coronavirus pandemic in China is being called a "Black Swan"
event because it was completely unexpected and unplanned, and because
it could have devastating consequences.

It mean lead to other "Black Swan" events.

First, China's economy is being devastated, and the effects are
overflowing into all the countries in the region. China is injecting
$713 billion of money into China's economy in the hope of preventing
the worst. However, with so much debt in China and beyond, it's
possible that missed payments in China and region will force
businesses into bankruptcy, resulting in a chain reaction of missed
payments and missed deadlines, and a global financial crisis. That's
one additional "Black Swan" possibility.

Second, China's social fabric is extremely fragile, and the number of
anti-government protests has been growing for years. As I've written
in the past, China's history is filled with anti-government rebellions
and coups that have occurred with regularity for millennia. The last
two massive rebellions began in China's south, near Hong Kong. Mao
Zedong's Long March that led to the Communist revolution civil war
(1934-49) started in the south. The massive Taiping Rebellion
(1852-64), which was led by a Christian convert who believed he was
the son of God and the younger brother of Jesus, began in the south
and spread north. It's now been 71 years since the end of the last
rebellion, and so China is overdue for its next rebellion, and that
would be another possible "Black Swan."

To prevent this, the CCP is mounting a campaign of blaming the United
States. Most Chinese people know that the CCP is corrupt and full of
crap, so this is unlikely to work.

John Xenakis is author of: "World View: War Between China and Japan:
Why America Must Be Prepared" (Generational Theory Book Series, Book
2), June 2019, Paperback: 331 pages, with over 200 source references,
$13.99 https://www.amazon.com/World-View-Betwee...732738637/

Sources:

• China coronavirus / Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying's Daily Briefing Online (China's Foreign Ministry, 3-Feb-2020)
  
• China blasts US for not helping with coronavirus fight, creating chaos (Global Times, Beijing, 3-Feb-2020)
  
• Using virus to smear China will 'backfire' (Global Times, Beijing, 3-Feb-2020)
  
• Accusations and insults won’t distract China from coronavirus fight: experts (Global Times, Beijing, 2-Feb-2020)
  
• Contingency plan needed for BRI amid epidemic (Global Times, Beijing, 2-Feb-2020)
  
• Coronavirus: A timeline of how the deadly outbreak is evolving (Pharmaceutical-Technology, 3-Feb-2020)
  
• Lockdown strategy / Are China’s measures to keep the virus from spreading before the Lunar New Year likely to work? (Diplomat, 25-Jan-2020)
  
• China's Xi faces his 'greatest political challenge' with coronavirus outbreak, says analyst (CNBC, 29-Jan-2020)
  
• Chinese provincial press conference on coronavirus inspires anger, criticism (Reuters, 26-Jan-2020)
  
• Coronavirus / China's Crisis Management Stress Test (Seeking Alpha, 2-Feb-2020)
  
• Coronavirus outbreak highlights China's social fragility (Nikkei, 31-Jan-2020)
  
• Timeline / MERS,SwineFlu,SARS / Authorities scramble to limit fallout of the virus, now spread across 15 countries (Nikkei, 29-Jan-2020)

Related Articles:

• Wuhan coronavirus hits China's economy hard, threatens world economy (02-Feb-2020)
  
  
• China's coronavirus threatens Xi Jinping's Mandate from Heaven (25-Jan-2020)
  
  
• UK-China war of words escalates sharply over Hong Kong riots (04-Jul-2019)
  
  
• Hong Kong protests show historic split between northern and southern China (22-Jun-2019)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, China, Wuhan, coronavirus,
Anhui, Chongqing, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hebei,
Heilonjiang, Henan, Hunan, Inner Mongolia, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Jilin,
Liaoning, Ningxia, Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanghai, Shanxi, Suzhou, Xi'an,
Xi Jinping, Ebola, Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC,
Black Swan, Taiping, Communist Revolution

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[John J. Xenakis]

** 04-Feb-2020 World View: Asia's economic outlook

Tiger Wrote:> Asia here. Again. The weekend saw a collapse in local business,
> unless your business was connected to food deliveries and selling
> clothing and shoes online. Stores are nearly empty as people are
> afraid to venture out from their homes. Restaurants are nearly
> empty, if not entirely empty. Many business owners sent their
> employees home early or gave them the weekend off. Many were told
> not to come in on Monday unless they were telephoned to do
> so. It's only a harbinger of what is to come.

> I don't live in China. I can assure you, this is the situation all
> over the region. Asia's economic outlook is catastrophically
> bad. I expect a quarter of all small businesses in this country to
> be bankrupt by spring, if this keeps up. If this isn't a 'Black
> Swan', then I can't imagine how terrible one would be witnessing
> after this.

> All this and I'll can think about is: I hope I don't get
> sick.

You wrote this on Sunday. Two days have passed since then. Do things
look any different today? Are restaurants starting to fill up again?
Are people beginning to shop again? Or are things getting worse and
worse?

[John J. Xenakis]

** 04-Feb-2020 World View: Intensive care for Wuhan coronavirus

Tom Mazanec Wrote:> John, the current death rate may be 2.1%, but if this does
> not stop spreading soon it will go a lot higher. Something like 10
> or even 20 percent of the patients only survive with hospital
> intensive care. There are not enough intensive care units to
> handle millions of patients.

richard5za Wrote:> I did some more research. Dead is only 2% of total infections, but
> dead plus serious condition in nearly 16%. So my point on having
> enough antibiotics on hand might be correct; depends upon speed of
> infection, I suppose. I imagine countries like USA would always
> have enough medicine, but it could be a disaster in other parts of
> the planet

This is an important point that I've been ignoring.

The death rate for people who contract the virus is being estimated at
around 2.1%. However, another 15-20% become very ill and survive only
because because they've received intensive medical care in a hospital.
That's why China has been building "pop-up hospitals" in Hubei
province, each one capable of housing 1,000 patients.

These "pop-up hospitals" are a very interesting development. The
Chinese developed this technology as part of "lessons learned" from
the SARS crisis in China in 2002-2003. The Chinese are staffing them
with military medics. I believe that three of these hospitals have
been built, as each one can be built within a week. In the months to
come, there should be some reports on how well they worked.

However, the obvious point is that no such "pop-up hospitals" are
possible outside of China. And so if there are outbreaks in other
countries, there will not be enough hospital space, the the death rate
may go much higher than 2.1%.

[Warren Dew]

(02-04-2020, 11:36 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: The death rate for people who contract the virus is being estimated at
around 2.1%.  However, another 15-20% become very ill and survive only
because because they've received intensive medical care in a hospital.

On the flip side, those are percentages of the people who get sick enough that they go to the hospital for it and have the virus confirmed.  We have little data on how many people get the disease but never go to the hospital and are never confirmed as cases.

By the end of March we should have better information on that.  Ironically, if the average case is mild, we should expect continued exponential growth in numbers infected and dying for a few weeks, since there will be a lot of infection outside of the hospitals.  If most cases get hospitalized, we should expect slow growth of the numbers infected, since there will be a lot fewer "carriers" "in the wild", so to speak.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 04-Feb-2020 World View: Exponential growth of new Wuhan coronavirus cases

This graph exhibits exponential growth:

• Exponential growth of new Wuhan coronavirus cases

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/03...rus-110550

As I've been writing in my articles, we should know by March 1 whether
this rate of growth will continue, or whether it will level off.

[David Horn]

(02-04-2020, 02:15 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 04-Feb-2020 World View: Exponential growth of new Wuhan coronavirus cases

This graph exhibits exponential growth, and perhaps even parabolic growth:

<see above>

As I've been writing in my articles, we should know by March 1 whether
this rate of growth will continue, or whether it will level off.

I'm betting on a continuation that slowly, and I do mean slowly, subsides from the exponential model. Too many left Wuhan before the crackdown before containment, and nothing indicates that a vaccine is in the offing. Other than heightened awareness, nothing is likely to keep this in check inside China. The rest of the world should be locked-down a lot sooner, so your March 1st date may apply to not-China, though, due to proximity, a few other nearby smaller nations may get dragged along with the PRC. This will not disappear from the radar soon.

[Warren Dew]

(02-04-2020, 02:15 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote:

Very interesting graph, John.  The doubling time is under 2 days until January 29, at which point the graph starts dropping away from exponential growth.

You may be interested in this:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/japan-says-...listb_pos1

A man from Hong Kong had the coronavirus and was aboard a cruise ship with 3700 people.  273 people on the ship who had fevers or close contact with the infected man were tested.  31 tests have come back so far, and 10 of them are positive.  With the ship being quarantined now, I'm not sure whether I should expect 100 our of the 273 people eventually to test positive, or 1000 out of the 3700, or maybe all 3700.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 05-Feb-2020 World View: Coronavirus slowing?

(02-04-2020, 11:44 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

> Very interesting graph, John. The doubling time is under 2 days
> until January 29, at which point the graph starts dropping away
> from exponential growth.

> You may be interested in this:

> https://www.wsj.com/articles/japan-says-...listb_pos1

> A man from Hong Kong had the coronavirus and was aboard a cruise
> ship with 3700 people. 273 people on the ship who had fevers or
> close contact with the infected man were tested. 31 tests have
> come back so far, and 10 of them are positive. With the ship
> being quarantined now, I'm not sure whether I should expect 100
> our of the 273 people eventually to test positive, or 1000 out of
> the 3700, or maybe all 3700.

That may be true, and if the growth is slowing, it would be a big
relief to everyone. Just keep in mind that a lot of people believe
that the Chinese are hiding cases, so we really won't know for a
couple of weeks.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 05-Feb-2020 World View: Fox News vs mainstream media

(02-03-2020, 12:39 PM)David Horn Wrote: > Forget Fox Business Network, and tell me what was playing on the
> Fox Network: do you watch Fox and Friends?. Of course the
> business networks focused on business issues. The political
> networks focus on politics. I assume their viewers expect that in
> both cases.

Sorry, I can't tell you that since I don't watch Fox and Friends. I'm
interested in news, not in fatuous political nonsense.

There was a time when I watched CNN almost 24 hours a day, but that
was before they turned into a sewer.

I try to watch MS-NBC for a while every day. NBC News used to be a
legitimate news operation, and there are still occasional remnants of
it on MS-NBC. I make a point of watching Hallie Jackson at 10 am ET.
I've found that her show is 75% fatuous nonsense and 25% news, and I
watch it for the 25% news.

This discussion gives me an opportunity to repeat and update stuff
I've written before about Fox News vs the mainstream media.

I've been following this issue off and on since around 2005. As I've
written in the past:

• Half the country is left of center and half the country is
  right of center. If you don't believe this, then consider that this
  is the definition of the word "center."
  
  
• All the mainstream media -- CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, BBC,
  Al-Jazeera -- all of them are left of center. That means they're all
  competing with each other for 50% of the national audience.
  
  
• Only FNC is right of center. That means that FNC essentially has
  no competition whatsoever for 50% of the national audience.

That's why Fox News consistently gets around 50% of the audience,
while all the other stations compete for the other 50%.

Furthermore, since Fox has no effective competition, it can afford to
be "fair and balanced," while all the others have to compete with one
another to be as loony left as possible.

So Fox News channel is definitely right of center, but also has any
number of regular moderate left-wing commentators, including Mara
Liasson, Juan Williams, Donna Brazile and Mary Harf.

If all you watch is CNN and MS-NBC, then you're only hearing the loony
news, and you owe it to your own intellectual honesty to balance it in
some way. There are two shows that you might consider.

The best general newscast on tv today is the 6-7pm newscast on FNC,
currently called "Special Report With Bret Baier." Both Bret Baier
and Martha MacCallum (who comes on at 7 pm) are right of center, but
give a great deal of time to "fair and balanced coverage" of
Democrats.

The best hard news analysis show is Hannity at 9 pm. Noone would ever
call Hannity "balanced." He is definitely right of center. But he's
very much highly analytical and not loony right. (I would say that
Tucker Carlson, at 8 pm ET, is loony right.)

I started watching Hannity regularly around a year or two ago as
counterweights to the daily nonsense from Adam Schiff and others who
made one "explosive" revelation after another, every day, and every
single one turned out to be a lie and a fabrication. The Mueller
report eventually proved that Schiff's "explosive" revelations were
all lies, but Hannity showed the same thing every day.

A good example of Hannity's show is that he frequently had reports
from John Solomon at The Hill. Solomon actually went to Ukraine and
got the proof of Schiff's daily lies, reporting on what was really
going on with Burisma and Ukraine's politics. Solomon himself began
getting attacked by the left-wing media because he was too effective,
and was forcing Schiff to change his story. It was really an amazing
situation.

So you have a choice. If you want to just believe Schiff's crap, then
just listen to CNN and MS-NBC and revel in the sewer. If you'd like
to see the counter-analysis, and find out what's really going on, the
only place you can get it every day is Hannity.

Quote:> "Fox News Channel Dominates Weekly Cable Ratings Charts

> Network's Impeachment coverage helps generate weekly primetime,
> total day wins

> R. Thomas Umstead Feb 4, 2020

> Fox News Channel was the most watched cable network last week as
> its Impeachment coverage helped the network generate strong
> ratings both in primetime and total day.

> Fox News -- bolstered by record performances by series Tucker
> Carlson Tonight and The Ingraham Angle, averaged 3.3 million
> viewers in primetime during the week of Jan. 27 through Feb. 2,
> according to Nielsen. MSNBC was a distant second with 1.5 million,
> followed by ESPN with 1.2 million viewers.

> HGTV finished fourth with 1.1 million viewers and CNN rounded out
> the top five with 1 million viewers.

> On the total day front, Fox News --bolstered by its coverage of
> Donald Trump's Impeachment trial -- generated its best week since
> January 2017, averaging 2 million viewers and easily outdistancing
> MSNBC, CNN, HGTV and ESPN, according to Nielsen."

> https://www.multichannel.com/news/fox-ne...ngs-charts

[David Horn]

(02-05-2020, 11:36 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 05-Feb-2020 World View: Fox News vs mainstream media

This discussion gives me an opportunity to repeat and update stuff I've written before about Fox News vs the mainstream media.

I've been following this issue off and on since around 2005.  As I've written in the past:

• Half the country is left of center and half the country is right of center.  If you don't believe this, then consider that this is the definition of the word "center."
  
  
• All the mainstream media -- CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, BBC, Al-Jazeera -- all of them are left of center.  That means they're all competing with each other for 50% of the national audience.
  
  
• Only FNC is right of center.  That means that FNC essentially has no competition whatsoever for 50% of the national audience.
  

That's why Fox News consistently gets around 50% of the audience, while all the other stations compete for the other 50%.

We've had a consistent drift to the right for several decades.  Using your yardstick, Richard Nixon would be left of center and Eisenhower, actually a liberal.  So that begs the question: what qualifies as "the center", when it moves around?  Is it a transitory thing?  If this era proves more progressive, will the center move to the left and make some of "the liberal mainstream media" centrist again?

John Wrote:Furthermore, since Fox has no effective competition, it can afford to be "fair and balanced," while all the others have to compete with one another to be as loony left as possible.

Fair and balanced?  Really?  When the news sources are fact checked, Fox is consistently shown to be extremely biased, to the point that it lies just like Trump.  And note, I'm not pointing to things that are conjecture.  These are verifiable facts they twist to meet their audience.  Regular viewers were rated only slightly better informed than folks who generally ignored the news.

John Wrote:So Fox News channel is definitely right of center, but also has any number of regular moderate left-wing commentators, including Mara
Liasson, Juan Williams, Donna Brazile and Mary Harf.

If all you watch is CNN and MS-NBC, then you're only hearing the loony news, and you owe it to your own intellectual honesty to balance it in some way.

If you do a quick run-through of MS-NBC, you'll find several former GOP staffers and office holders, like Nicole Wallace and Elise Jordan, to say nothing of Michael Steel.  In fact, the list is long.  For that matter Joe Scarborough was originally a conservative GOP House member.  I doubt Fox has anywhere near the concentration of left-of-center commentators, and zero hosting programs there.  In the straight news part of the operation, there actually are.  Chris Wallace, though certainly conservative, is one.  Sheppard Smith had to leave.  He had all he could take.

John Wrote:There are two shows that you might consider.

The best general newscast on tv today is the 6-7pm newscast on FNC, currently called "Special Report With Bret Baier."  Both Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum (who comes on at 7 pm) are right of center, but give a great deal of time to "fair and balanced coverage" of Democrats.

Are you serious?  I've watched Bret Baier, and he's far from balanced … or fair.  I've never watched Martha MacCallum, so I don't know about her.

John Wrote:The best hard news analysis show is Hannity at 9 pm.  No one would ever call Hannity "balanced."  He is definitely right of center.  But he's very much highly analytical and not loony right.  (I would say that Tucker Carlson, at 8 pm ET, is loony right.)

I started watching Hannity regularly around a year or two ago as counterweights to the daily nonsense from Adam Schiff and others who made one "explosive" revelation after another, every day, and every single one turned out to be a lie and a fabrication.  The Mueller report eventually proved that Schiff's "explosive" revelations were all lies, but Hannity showed the same thing every day.

I see you drink your Kool-Aid by the gallon.  Hannity is Donald Trump's Joseph Goebbels.  What you call nonsense from Adam Schiff is now recognized by GOP Senators as fully valid and accurate.  Please, point out any fabrication that can be shown to be one.  Generalities don't cut it.

John Wrote:A good example of Hannity's show is that he frequently had reports from John Solomon at The Hill.  Solomon actually went to Ukraine and got the proof of Schiff's daily lies, reporting on what was really going on with Burisma and Ukraine's politics.  Solomon himself began getting attacked by the left-wing media because he was too effective, and was forcing Schiff to change his story.  It was really an amazing situation.

Citations, please.  and include something that verifies your information as true or false, depending on what you claim of course.

John Wrote:So you have a choice.  If you want to just believe Schiff's crap, then just listen to CNN and MS-NBC and revel in the sewer.  If you'd like to see the counter-analysis, and find out what's really going on, the only place you can get it every day is Hannity.

John, I'm really worried about you.  How can you be that gullible?