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The CDC lost control of the coronavirus pandemic, then the agency disappeared

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Re: The CDC lost control of the coronavirus pandemic, then the agency disappeared

#91

Post by chiefalchemist »

icegreentea2 wrote: post #22
vikramkr wrote: post #5

Over the past few years a series of American agencies have lost their reputation and world standing. The FAA with the 737 max, the CDC with the test, the FDA with testing regulation and hydroxychloroquine. Its important to have institutions that work, but we've spent years deliberately gutting them and undervaluing them. All that money spent on the military and homeland security, and in the end we were caught utterly…

I think you'd make a stronger argument by instead of making a military or other things argument, and just make a 'fund other things more' argument. The reason I think you should stay away from pointing fingers, especially at a relatively divisive issue like military or especially aircraft carrier funding is because then you shift a question of "should American be world leading in commercial air travel regulation, pan…

At nearly three-quarters of a trillion, the DoD budget is difficult to ignore. It had bipartisan support. It has not made us any safer.

It's not fingerpointing. It's simply a perfect example of a system and priorities gone sideways. It's a 700 billion gorilla that continues to bloat because saying otherwise is considered to be unAmerican, etc.

The narrative of not talking openly about the DOD budget needs to change.

Re: The CDC lost control of the coronavirus pandemic, then the agency disappeared

#92

Post by smackay »

vikramkr wrote: post #5

Over the past few years a series of American agencies have lost their reputation and world standing. The FAA with the 737 max, the CDC with the test, the FDA with testing regulation and hydroxychloroquine. Its important to have institutions that work, but we've spent years deliberately gutting them and undervaluing them. All that money spent on the military and homeland security, and in the end we were caught utterly…

It seems that successive administrations have lost sight of the benefits of soft power and only go for the hard version instead. Having world-leading institutions with the ability to advise other goes a lot further, for a fraction of the cost.

Courtesy of Hollywood (more soft power, but with a more dubious pedigree) there is no situation where the CDC does not, absolutely, have it's shit together. For the price of a single aircraft carrier you could probably make that a reality.

Re: The CDC lost control of the coronavirus pandemic, then the agency disappeared

#93

Post by EGreg »

icegreentea2 wrote: post #22
vikramkr wrote: post #5

Over the past few years a series of American agencies have lost their reputation and world standing. The FAA with the 737 max, the CDC with the test, the FDA with testing regulation and hydroxychloroquine. Its important to have institutions that work, but we've spent years deliberately gutting them and undervaluing them. All that money spent on the military and homeland security, and in the end we were caught utterly…

I think you'd make a stronger argument by instead of making a military or other things argument, and just make a 'fund other things more' argument. The reason I think you should stay away from pointing fingers, especially at a relatively divisive issue like military or especially aircraft carrier funding is because then you shift a question of "should American be world leading in commercial air travel regulation, pan…

There is a huge disparity here that needs to be addressed.

The Pentagon can’t pass an audit for decades, $7 Trillion just in the last 10 years unaccounted for. Yet we increased the annual military budget by $100B a year in 2018 alone.

Meanwhile we say we can’t afford these other programs.

If national security is a priority then why this mentality? Given such a mentality, the military should probably just subsume the CDC or something, just so the politicians can fund CDC as part of “the military”.

The root cause though is this obsession with growing the largest fighting force and largest employer on the planet. We have 30x more bases than the rest of the world combined! The same people who say they want to see smaller government and hate central planning tell us to open our pocketbooks to keep giving more, more, more to continuously operate in 80 other countries.

Then when we ask why can’t we have money for better education and healthcare to cover all our own citizens like European countries, they turn around and tell us the reason those countries can afford it is that we protect them. Well if that’s true, how is that America first, I wonder?

Nothing makes sense.

Re: The CDC lost control of the coronavirus pandemic, then the agency disappeared

#94

Post by catalogia »

nl wrote: post #85
catalogia wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No matter which way you slice it, America has a very capable blue water navy while China's barely qualifies. They're on tier with India, Italy, and Russia; only capable of force-projection in their neighborhood. Besides the US, France and the UK are capable of global power projection; that's it. And both of those are in NATO too.

France isn't in NATO. Edit: ok they are. But they did attempt to withdraw and were only stopped by the 20 year rule. And they still don't have unified nuclear command. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_from_NATO

France was a member of NATO from the very beginning. In the 60s France had some manner of dispute with the rest of NATO and disassociated themselves in some capacity, but technically remained a member. Since 2009, French/NATO relations have been largely normalized, I think with the exception of how the French government chooses to control France's nukes.

> Edit: ok they are. But they did attempt to withdraw and were only stopped by the 20 year rule. And they still don't have unified nuclear command.

Be that as it may, I don't think Americans need an expensive navy to protect themselves from the French.

Re: The CDC lost control of the coronavirus pandemic, then the agency disappeared

#95

Post by paulcole »

mschuetz wrote: post #78
paulcole wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turn your adblocker off if you want to read those articles? If you don’t, don’t.

adblockers are a non-negotiable necessity nowadays. not due to ads, but due to tracking.

OK, then you don’t get to read the article. It’s a fair trade.

Re: The CDC lost control of the coronavirus pandemic, then the agency disappeared

#96

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

vikramkr wrote: post #5

Over the past few years a series of American agencies have lost their reputation and world standing. The FAA with the 737 max, the CDC with the test, the FDA with testing regulation and hydroxychloroquine. Its important to have institutions that work, but we've spent years deliberately gutting them and undervaluing them. All that money spent on the military and homeland security, and in the end we were caught utterly…

It is a conscious effort. Any sort of independence has to be rooted out.CFPB is a good recent example. It was pretty independent from vagaries of poltics until Mnuchin got in. In fact, yesterday he was bemoaning the fact that those agencies staff career beaurocrats ( as opposed career politicians). It is sad to watch.

Re: The CDC lost control of the coronavirus pandemic, then the agency disappeared

#97

Post by tenuousemphasis »

nl wrote: post #85
catalogia wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No matter which way you slice it, America has a very capable blue water navy while China's barely qualifies. They're on tier with India, Italy, and Russia; only capable of force-projection in their neighborhood. Besides the US, France and the UK are capable of global power projection; that's it. And both of those are in NATO too.

France isn't in NATO. Edit: ok they are. But they did attempt to withdraw and were only stopped by the 20 year rule. And they still don't have unified nuclear command. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_from_NATO

That would be news to NATO. https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/nato_countries.htm

Re: The CDC lost control of the coronavirus pandemic, then the agency disappeared

#98

Post by discordance »

jupp0r wrote: post #54
rayiner wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Militaries are reliant on domestic production and labor. (Paying Chinese solider costs the government a fraction as much as an American soldier.) So instead of an exchange rate conversion, you should be doing a purchasing-power conversion. For these three countries, that means multiplying by 2x to 4x. Also, the US is particularly inefficient at capital spending. It costs us a billion dollars to build a mile of subway…

> So instead of an exchange rate conversion, you should be doing a purchasing-power conversion. Are soldiers with greater purchasing power more effective on the battlefield?

All the battlefields created in the last 20 years have been more like walking into quicksand

Re: The CDC lost control of the coronavirus pandemic, then the agency disappeared

#99

Post by JumpCrisscross »

x86_64Ubuntu wrote: post #83
endogui wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is filling the role of the Roman Empire, securing trade routes to allow efficient scales of tech expertise and production. If that military is scaled back or shown to be obsolete/ineffectual, then globalism itself will come into question. The dark ages were caused by the localizing of production, with local feifdoms losing access to specialized technical expertise. To some extent, this is what we see now with…

So only the US by virtue of "something" has a vested interest in globalism?

> only the US by virtue of "something" has a vested interest in globalism?

It’s a tragedy of the commons.

That said, I believe we could protect this common with 2/3 the current military budget, maybe half.

Re: The CDC lost control of the coronavirus pandemic, then the agency disappeared

#100

Post by addicted »

x86_64Ubuntu wrote: post #80
icegreentea2 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you'd make a stronger argument by instead of making a military or other things argument, and just make a 'fund other things more' argument. The reason I think you should stay away from pointing fingers, especially at a relatively divisive issue like military or especially aircraft carrier funding is because then you shift a question of "should American be world leading in commercial air travel regulation, pan…

The fact that "military" is a "divisive" issue proves the point of how we got to this point in the first place.

Where did you get that the military is divisive?

People are divided on the amount of funding the military should receive and whether or not it needs to continue growing.

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