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GM’s CEO Offers to Make Ventilators in WWII-Style Mobilization

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Re: GM’s CEO Offers to Make Ventilators in WWII-Style Mobilization

#501

Post by chrisjc »

joezydeco wrote: post #438
gnopgnip wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is literally what the military is now. Under the berry amendment a lot of what the military buys needs to be 100% domestic. A significant fraction of military spending is to ensure that the logistics are in place in case of a greater need in the future, not just to fulfill current needs and training, or any specific mission.

This is a great 99PI podcast about the US Army Natick center, which develops military rations. https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/war-and-pizza/ Part of the mission is to develop the technology and then commercialize it. Now you have a number of factories that are capable of switching into ration production if the need arises. Things like powdered cheese, condiment packets, and retort packaging came out of this r…

Off-topic, but my podcast list has been so enriched through reading HN comment. Thanks for the link.

Re: GM’s CEO Offers to Make Ventilators in WWII-Style Mobilization

#502

Post by SlowRobotAhead »

I have an M&M Mars Co 1911 that was made by the candy company as a effort to show they could help with WWII efforts.

So definitely not an unheard of scenario to move excess capacity to out of industry items.

But I think my 1911 is more collectible than a Tesla Ventilator. Still, someone might pay decent money for that some day.

Re: GM’s CEO Offers to Make Ventilators in WWII-Style Mobilization

#503

Post by SlowRobotAhead »

kemayo wrote: post #500
ruffrey wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you point us to some current sources about ICE arresting people at hospitals?

There was a viral photo a few days ago. There a lot of context around it: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/03/the-right-and-w... It basically boils down to "ICE has a policy of not arresting anyone at hospitals; this was a special case where someone they were in the middle of arresting had to be taken to a hospital, and they continued as soon as he was discharged".

> this was a special case where someone they were in the middle of arresting had to be taken to a hospital, and they continued as soon as he was discharged"

So no issue at all and the law was being enforced in a completely rational and logical way. Ok, a little different from the claim that ICE is rounding up people at hospitals.

Thanks for the context.

Re: GM’s CEO Offers to Make Ventilators in WWII-Style Mobilization

#504

Post by catherd »

tlb wrote: post #468
sandfly wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Machine shops are Turing complete. You can use a machine to fabricate the machine you are using.

Very few are. Making ball bearings, for example, requires very special machines that no regular shop has.

...but you can make machines in machine shops, as pointed out above. or machines to make machines, if needed.

or in the simpler case you might fall back to scraped and oiled ways and bushings

Re: GM’s CEO Offers to Make Ventilators in WWII-Style Mobilization

#505

Post by colinmhayes »

blackrock wrote: post #415
config_yml wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Manufactures like Hamilton Medical that are local here are currently working overtime and also work on Saturdays to keep up with demand. They are not raising prices, but they're also not selling to new customers, as they're afraid intermediate buyers are taking advantage and raising prices on their end. They also said they have about 2-3 months of runway until their supplies dry up, since parts from China aren't comi…

How did they know to order more supplies in December? China reported the new novel strain of the coronavirus to the WHO on December 31. [1] If correct, then this means they were monitoring the news, and reacted immediately, and on the very same day of the fresh report. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6905e1.htm

China spent more than a week attempting to cover coronavirus up. By the time the Chinese government made a statement the problem was pretty well known among the Wuhan medical community.

Re: GM’s CEO Offers to Make Ventilators in WWII-Style Mobilization

#506

Post by dang »

whiddershins wrote: post #383
dang wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't post unsubstantive and/or flamewar comments to HN. You've done that repeatedly lately (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22586334 ) and we ban accounts that do this. If you wouldn't mind, please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and post only in the intended spirit of the site—especially now, when stress is running high and likely to get higher.

I hear you. I will take a break from commenting. Honestly I find your comment sobering. It reminds me I’ve been diligently and carefully contributing to a site for 8 years, and my efforts could be erased by a moderator in an eye blink because of a couple of frustrated comments. I think it has not been a great use of my time.

In theory, sure; in practice we're not so capricious. We don't ban, or are happy to unban, anyone who sincerely wants to use HN site as intended, except perhaps in rare cases of misunderstanding. And we wouldn't ban an established user because of a couple comments, except perhaps in truly extreme cases.

Re: GM’s CEO Offers to Make Ventilators in WWII-Style Mobilization

#507

Post by selimthegrim »

selimthegrim wrote: post #82
Spooky23 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a story published earlier in the week. At that point, no orders had been placed for ventilators. Presumably the defense procurement authorization will result in that purchase being made. Hopefully it’s not another family grift.

You mean the one Trump just walked back? (According to the NYT earlier, searching for corroboration)

Downvoters, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22628158

Re: GM’s CEO Offers to Make Ventilators in WWII-Style Mobilization

#508

Post by AnthonyMouse »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #378
phaemon wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, rare earth elements are common pretty much everywhere. The only reason companies buy them from China is because they're cheaper due to their lower wages and lack of environmental protection. When China limited export of rare earths, leading to a dispute with Western countries, all that happened was suddenly Western mining firms became viable and attracted investment. China then dropped the export limits and dro…

Same thing the Chinese did with solar panels back in the early 2000s. Subsidise national production so it could run at a loss, forcing others out of business and cornering the market. In some sense it's pretty obvious that a free market capitalist system will mostly lose in competition with a state regulated system, if the latter decides it is important to have control of a sector.

> In some sense it's pretty obvious that a free market capitalist system will mostly lose in competition with a state regulated system, if the latter decides it is important to have control of a sector through tying or dumping.

This is not really specific to state control -- it's a classic antitrust problem. A monopoly in one sector leverages it into control of another sector.

The problem being, what do you use for a remedy in this case? The US DoJ can't exactly break up the Chinese government.

Re: GM’s CEO Offers to Make Ventilators in WWII-Style Mobilization

#509

Post by 0xffff2 »

babesh wrote: post #166
chapium wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hospitals are hamstrung by their bureaucracies and financial policies. The best thing that can be done is an independent assessment of need and start "airdropping" supplies if a shortage is apparent.

Did no one bother to actually read the article? It says that there can potentially be a shortage but that there isn't currently. The fed has 13000 and the military an extra 2000. It currently seems more hamstrung by bureaucracy or lack of information. Hospitals have to request their state governments which have to then request them from the federal government. Only one state has requested them so far. "“We have recei…

Unless the US central bank is hoarding ventilators, "the feds" have 13000, not "the fed".

Re: GM’s CEO Offers to Make Ventilators in WWII-Style Mobilization

#510

Post by Magnap »

agurk wrote: post #329
leereeves wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NY Times has some great charts showing the number of new cases each day for many nations. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/19/world/coronav... The only countries that appear to have handled it better are South Korea and Japan. If I mixed up the charts for the US and other nations except those and Italy (which is much worse), you wouldn't be able to tell which is which. So when you say: > The US governm…

From that NY Times article Denmark has an interesting shaped curve that might cause the casual observer to think it's been brought under control. Denmark were very good at testing widely initially and have subsequently changed the criteria for who gets tested to only be for those presenting with acute symptoms. I haven't been able to find out why they changed but my assumption is limited testing capacity and they're…

Dane here. Yes, it's because of limited testing capacity (new machines arrived recently and they are ramping up to 1000 tests per day, additional capacity will among other things go to surveillance of cases with mild symptoms, modeled on our existing system for influenza-like illness surveillance where samples are, well, sampled among a specific subset of GPs), but it's not only those with severe symptoms who are tested, it's anyone who is hospitalized (which also includes members of vulnerable populations with only moderate symptoms) and health care workers, with the goal being to prevent hospital-acquired infections. In a single sentence, the strategy could be summed up as "people who aren't in the hospital should assume it's COVID-19 if they have symptoms and act accordingly, but once they get to the hospital we can't afford to assume".
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