Let's keep the rhetoric on HN above sarcasm. It's not even clever. You just say the opposite of what you mean, so it does especially poorly in text form.
Let's keep the rhetoric on HN to whatever gets the point across. I am well aware of HN's etiquette. So well that I already regret engaging in this pointless conversation.
Your point obviously didn't come across so well. For next time, consider if this thread would have advanced this far had you just said "That's not what the word "exclusive" means, <it means this>."
China is a country with unconstrained capitalism. U.S. has constrained capitalism. Before you go down that rabbit-hole, please consider that capitalism is not a policy engine. It is a means of production, and in fact the only meaningful system of production left in whole world.
That doesn't make it good or evil. People are good and evil. The policies they apply can have good and evil effects. Capitalism can be employed to raise the poor out of poverty, or to keep them there. It can be used to effectively help the sick, or ignore them.
Constrained capitalism coupled with sensible policies, kind, honorable people to administer them, and communities with a sense of charity to share the benefits produce some of the best results the world has ever seen. But it is the quality of people in which we're lacking. Confiscation and coercion won't improve things, it always makes bad situations worse. We need administrators more interested in making the government work for the governed than for the governing. We've not had that for quite some time.
A system should be judged by the outcomes of the incentives it promotes. Too many people seem to think that these incentives are somehow disconnected from capitalism.
For example, capitalist incentives do not encourage corporations and businesses to be able to handle a crisis like this, instead they encourage to pay out as much as possible to their owners & execs - skipping a "bad times" margin. To add insult to injury the larger corps can feel safe with this behavior since they'll get bailed out by the state.
How would you explain Trump's "America First" when the solution isn't coming from the US. I hope he gets what he asked for, having to admit that the possible solution is coming from a ally.
( I'm not talking about Americans in general fyi. I hope the vaccine will be available to all)
The fact that the CEO was fired with prejudice and replaced by the former CEO unfortunately speaks for the theory that this was about an exclusive deal with the US, where the offer was coming from the highest level of the US administration. IMHO, if true, that would be batshit crazy.
As an American citizen please Germany don’t be submissive in your response to this. Publish the emails, the phone calls, sanction us, go to the press. We deserve it.
IMO a better outcome might come from the odds of the entire world without the USA, rather than than solely the USA getting the vaccine and distributing as we see fit.
Indeed, but Germany achieving that outcome by making this a PR war will just make global cooperation less likely.
This needs to be achieved by the EU leveraging as much cash as it can from other countries with an agreement to distribute the vaccine by some WHO index of need. In this way, you outbid the US by showing collaboration works.
We can't waver on global health priorities, but let the USA admin shout its way into darkness alone and not drag in global cooperation with it.
Especially when the one whose incompetence and malevolence needs to be pointed out is himself doing nothing BUT finger pointing and lying, when he should instead be working on solving the problem.
Publish the emails, the phone calls, sanction us, go to the press
Agree with the rest, but sanctions don't hurt the people who actually came up with this shitty idea. It ends up hurting the normal guy on the road, who will probably not endorse the idea in the first place.
It hurts the metrics of the people who came up with the idea, and might therefore reduce the chance they get re-elected. Plus, it adds weight to the (perceived) severity of the crime. But collateral damage is high, so it might not be the best of plans.
And yet, we generally agree on some baseline human standards. Sure, maybe you can find examples of people who would think this is morally reasonable, but I would guess they are a pretty extreme minority.
Jeez, are you comparing some stupid TV show with life saving vaccine/medicine - especially one for a contagious virus that threatens the entire planet??!!
Not everything should be looked at with legal lens. Moral and ethical codes have much higher standards than legal, ya know?
I'm very obviously not a lawyer nor lawmaker, but I'm under the impression that anything can be classified as an act of war as long as another country is willing to treat it as such, and other superpowers/blocs are willing to sign off on this assessment, and back it militarily and through sanctions/incentives.
(Though this would all probably swept aside as soon as somebody reverse engineers the vaccine.)
What a depressing, callous analogy. You are comparing the IP of an entertainment product to a drug of significant consequence to the health of citizens throughout the world. Well done.
As someone who lived 22 years under a regime that was under US sanction, I disagree.
The normal day folks like us bear the biggest (by a large margin) brunt of the sanctions whereas the rich and ruling class go about their day merrily. Sure they'll encounter some inconvenience like not being able to travel to certain countries or being able to expand their businesses as much as they wish to, but they live in secluded districts with 24-hour electricity while us plebes get 12 hour electricity every day (This is just to mention the least annoying effect of artificial scarcity created by sanctions; the government couldn't get parts nor get training on technical know-how to fix/upgrade the hydro generators because of the sanctions).
A lot of people starves and the education system suffer, which sets the entire generation backward by at least 3 decades (while the rich and ruling class send their kids to international schools and then at institutions in nearby neighboring countries; some even went as far as faking their children's identities and sent them to places like Australia, Canada and even US to study).
Sanctions aren't that effective and they only hurt (and kill) the people at the bottom of the society.
Without trade policy you have only words or war. For any stress you place on a country it's always going to be the poorest who suffer, even if it's a natural disaster or pandemic.
Sanction the rich. If the rich and middle class loose out on luxuries that they see other countries enjoying, a regime change will quickly follow.
Having the mot bags of rice, or the largest cattle herd only makes one feel rich if they don’t know about the existence of other luxuries. Sooner or later, someone will think I’d we simply off the king, we could have power AND an end to sanctions.
Believe it or not, the US imposed sanctions targeting specifically to the rich. But the sad reality is that a lot of poor people are dependent on the rich to make their day to day living (food). So sanctions eventually affected poor people even if they are designed for the rich. For example, make it difficult for the rich to buy cars in the country by imposing sanctions? Too bad, the rich also buy cars to run their tax companies etc. and so the sanction has to be applied to those class of cars as well. Then what happens is the car prices are too expensive across the board and people have to import second-hand cars which costs more for maintenance and are MPG inefficient. Since the car prices are too high, there's no insurance to be had and once you get into an accident as a bus driver, your life can be ruined (meaning, you'll lose your job and career regardless of whether you are at fault or not). I have not even started about gas prices (because of the sanctions, the gas prices are much higher than they should be and people have to queue up in long lines to get their weekly quota--not to mention it creates black markets and dangerous consequences like occasional fires--thereby wasting productivity of everyone involved. I'm not giving you very good examples here, but one will understand how sanctions impact poor people the most only if one has lived in a country under sanction.
The quickest and most effective way to transform an authoritarian country for the better is to let the rich, the poor and the middle class have a taste of what quality living (to some extent, the capitalism) is like. Then their children will get proper education and things will automatically change for the better in a generation at most. I have seen that with the children of the rich and military/ruling class people in my home country; these younger generations are the ones who, using their parents' accumulated enormous wealth and influence, to make changes (some bad, some pretty decent) to copy what they've tasted in other, more developed countries.
Hypocrisy is standing for one thing and doing another. Standing against the policies of the government you’re governed by is not hypocritical, by any measure whatsoever. Americans are not individually responsible for our governments actions any more than a German is responsible for the historical actions of theirs.
You have to think more and harder . That is the definition of hypocrisy. Showing people they do care about people and actually not giving a damn to well being of people.
> Americans are not individually responsible for our governments actions any more than a German is responsible for the historical actions of theirs.
It is funny when it comes to Iran, your politicians use the exact opposite logic.
I am not “my politicians”. Me and “my politicians” are individual human beings with different opinions. Disagreeing with my nations politics does not make me a hypocrite.
So with that explanation, I would say you have not read the comment I was responding to.
>Agree with the rest, but sanctions don't hurt the people who actually came up with this shitty idea. It ends up hurting the normal guy on the road, who will probably not endorse the idea in the first place.
When you say this in the response of sanctioning the USA, but don't say that when sanctioning other countries, that does only one meaning. You don't care about ordinary people from other countries (although you claim you do). Which makes you a hypocrite.
Except I never mentioned sanctioning other nations. If you conflate my opinions with those of other individuals - of course you think I’m a hypocrite. Groups do not have idea or opinions - groups are just piles of individuals.
What would you find in the emails, Trump saying that he prioritizes American wellbeing over everybody else? That might be harsh diplomatically, but that's going to be taken as evidence that he's living up to his promises. That's what he said he was going to do, and almost everybody outside of America disliked him from the beginning of his campaign because he was promising to be not nice to other countries.
As am American citizen, that is quite possibly the stupidest thing Germany could do. Please, for the sake of the world, keep this information confidential until after the election.
Publishing the emails, calls, and efforts Trump made to secure an exclusive virus would just play into his hands and provide a huge boost to his political campaign. As past scandals have shown, there is no such thing as bad press for him.
So deny him the press and the coverage and let this blow over quietly until Nov 4. And then go nuts publishing all the details.
If the revelations that Trump has fantasized about incest with his own daughter, cheated on all of his wives, had sex with pornstars and paid them off, bribed government officials, has gone bankrupt multiple times, has been sued by fraud multiple times, is enriching himself using public funds, is accepting money from foreign governments and making political decisions based on that, has attempted to coerce a foreign government into acting against a US citizen, has interfered with criminal investigations, has covered up and destroyed evidence of criminal actions, and is possibly suffering early on-set dementia isn't enough bad press...
What do you think are going to be the actual repercussions, in the US, of learning that the US president is trying to secure exclusive US control of a vaccine for COVID19 for priority distribution in the US?
They aren't going to be any. Indeed, to his base, stuff like this is exactly why they voted for him. (If Trump had succeeded in securing that vaccine solely for the US, he would win in November in a landslide.) And that's pretty much the extent of the calculations that went on in his head when he attempted this stunt.
It's a good thing he failed. But let's be responsible about disclosure and time it so that he can't derive any political benefit from it.
"In a normal presidency, any one of these scandals would have sunk it but with Trump, we get a new one every week and nothing."
(I forget but probably someone on Lawyers,Guns,Money.)
He's already been exposed, many times. Made no difference to his base or to a large swath of independents.
His actions on this matter won't change anyone's mind already opposed to him, but it might get a few supporters off the couch in November.
He can always be exposed again November 5th. As the impeachment demonstrates, the threat of exposure is far more damaging to Trump than the exposure itself.
Babylon 5, S05E02: The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari, @29:53
G'Kar: To the Narn Homeword, of course. You came with ships, and guns, and mass drivers. You plucked asteroids out of near orbit and sent them plunging down onto our cities, killing men and women and children. Onto the sick and the infirm and the innocent.
Londo Molari: It was not my idea. I didn't even know. It was Refa. It was not my fault. I said ...
G'Kar: You said nothing. You said Nothing. You said NOTHING. Nothing.
Londo Molari: Leave me alone.
G'Kar: No. Look at me.
Londo Molari: I can't.
G'Kar: LOOK AT ME.
G'Kar: Do you remember this place?
Londo Molari: Yes.
G'Kar: I was tortured in this place. I as whipped. Emperor Cartasia wanted to hear me scream.
Londo Molari: Yes, and if you did not scream, the 40th stroke of the whip would kill you. And your people would be slaves forever. Yes.
Londo Mollari finally spoke out AFTER the Narn homeworld was destroyed. A lot of good that did.
You're perpetuating the myth that Trump is invincible, that "there is no such thing as bad press for him", and echoing his enablers who are whining that "now is not the time for finger pointing and talking about the past, there will be a time for that later", at the same time that Trump himself is doing nothing but finger pointing and talking about the past.
If finger pointing and talking about the past is so ineffective and off-limits, then why is Trump doing it so much, why are his allies breathlessly admonishing everyone else not to do it, and why do you think at the same time that Trump is so invincible?
I don't really care what happened in a work of fiction.
As for paragraph two, it's not a myth. It's been the last 4 years of reality. One more minor scandal won't make a difference compared to the things he's already gotten away with, and in this respect we disagree on whether it's actually a scandal for him (which you believe) or it's pandering to his base (which I believe).
It's not about making the past off-limits, it's about taking away a campaign point from Trump. What Trump tried to do is not a scandal to him. It is not a bad thing to his supporters. THEY WANT HIM TO DO STUFF LIKE THIS. And publicizing that is just giving him free publicity that will make his supporters more motivated to show up to re-elect him in November. Is that what you want?
I mean, there's been almost 5 years of bad press for him (discounting everything before late 2015) and it hasn't really affected how the GOP treat him (like a king) or how his base seem him (like a saviour king.)
> Trump is invincible
Until the media and the GOP start doing a better job, yeah, he pretty much is, unfortunately.
Sanctions seem extreme. This article alleges Trump offered to buy a vaccine exclusive to the US. That seems like it merits a "No" more than a punitive response.
Virtually anyone who understands positive versus negative rights. Rights -to- something are highly dubious. Rights -from- something are much more readily agreed on by Americans who value the way the constitution was written. If I have a right to good food - then someone somewhere has lost the right to refuse to serve me - either directly (I’m allowed into their store if they want or not) or indirectly (they are forced to labor in fields in terrible conditions). So - while no one has the right to keep you from creating your own nutrition- you absolutely do not have the right to other people’s nutrition. You can abstract as far as you want - but a right “to” something always boils down to implied forced labor (farmers, doctors - the list goes on and on). Many wars have been waged because people felt they had “a right” to a piece of land or a resource.
To be clear I’m not saying i think we should keep good food from people - of course not. But many many people are rightfully dubious of positive rights.
> then someone somewhere has lost the right to refuse to serve me - either directly (I’m allowed into their store if they want or not) or indirectly (they are forced to labor in fields in terrible conditions).
There are other options than this false dichotomy. We could all chip in, relative to our means, to ensure a baseline of healthy food is available to all. I neither serve food nor labor in the fields, and yet I'm pretty sure I could be part of a solution that ensures everyone gets basic healthy food even if they cannot/do not work.
Of course - but the implication is enough people need to willingly do that - which is a negative right - you’re allowed to spend whatever time and money you want on feeding people. But as soon as you flip it - we just need everyone to do ____ - you’re describing forced labor. Hoping everyone would be good enough citizens to want to do the forced labor does not make the labor not forced.
Am I? I don't think I am. I think I'm describing a system where we take a portion of the product of the labor you choose to undertake, and use it to raise the minimum standard.
You can do more labor or less labor. You can do more valuable labor or less valuable labor. You are not forced to labor, but you are required to give up a portion of what you choose to undertake.
This lacks nuance. If we insist on enforcing private property, thus creating scarcity for most, the whole question becomes much more complex. Because now the main reason I need the right to someones else's produce is because private property excludes me from providing my own. This indirectly forces the propertyless to work for someone who has land/property.
I do have to admit I respect anyone who can inhabit such a radical idea as abolishing private property. If I felt there was a path towards that direction that didn’t involve violent revolution and a whole lot of murder - I might consider it. Bolshevik philosophy starts interesting but turns too brutal and violent too quickly. All that said your reply is the most intellectually legitimate reply to what I posted. HN isn’t the place though. I’ve always thought if the worlds socialists and libertarians hung out for a while we’d all get along far more than the world wants us to know <3
Thanks. I would like to clarify though that although I do see myself as a socialist, I'm not at all a bolshevik (or any variety of Marxist-Leninism). Because I agree with you on the inevitable degeneration into authoritarianism and/or state-capitalism.
The British philosopher, and socialist, Bertrand Russell visited Russia just a few years after the revolution and summarized his thoughts regarding the bolsheviks in his "The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism"[0], 1920, in which he basically summarizes his thoughts like this:
"I am compelled to reject Bolshevism for two reasons: First, because
the price mankind must pay to achieve Communism by Bolshevik methods
is too terrible; and secondly because, even after paying the price, I
do not believe the result would be what the Bolsheviks profess to
desire."
It's an interesting historical document of a turbulent time, and not socialist theory heavy, so recommended reading for the curious. It's also an example of how socialism is a broad topic, both then and now, not just another word for Bolshevism.
Rights of living creatures aren't inherent in their real being, they are interpretations of the reality. In their essence they are mental constructs developed in human minds, and in practice they are social agreements. All rights you can have are those you gave yourself and those other gave you and decided to respect. So in the "immanent" sense Fjolsvith doesn't have right to nutritious food.
* USA acquires a Vaccine
* USA Gov. gives the vaccine to some big pharma corp.
* Big pharma will patent the vaccine
* The world will be sued by big pharma if it come up with a vaccine
Many countries already have laws allowing them to ignore patents (issued by that country or by other countries) for essential medications.
A COVID19 vaccine would definitely fall into that category. So unless there's something unique about the process of making the vaccine that is difficult to replicate, an "exclusive US patent" means nothing.
Trump's entire platform is "America First", so this should surprise no one.
Since I got a few downvotes, I figured I should support this statement with a reference. What's more "America First" than making sure only America gets a vaccine?
America First is a different concept, and would be more like developing a vaccine and making sure Americans are vaccinated before anyone in other countries. But in this case we may not be the first to develop it so we want to buy it for ourselves.
Imagine the reaction from Trump's base if he could tell them that "he" secured a vaccine that will only be available to Americans.
To be clear, I'd much rather see America (or any country) develop a vaccine and share it to the world free of royalties, but at least in America, that's not the political climate we live in.
On April 12, 1955, the day the Salk vaccine was declared “safe, effective and potent,” legendary CBS newsman Edward R. Morrow interviewed its creator and asked who owned the patent. “Well, the people, I would say,” said Salk in light of the millions of charitable donations raised by the March of Dimes that funded the vaccine’s research and field testing. “There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?” Lawyers for the foundation had investigated the possibility of patenting the vaccine but did not pursue it, in part because of Salk’s reluct
For what it's worth, the company is kind of denying this:
> "As a consequence, the company is in contact with especially CEPI and many other organizations and authorities worldwide, however abstains from commenting on speculations and rejects allegations about offers for acquisition of the company or its technology."
> In a separate statement, the health ministry told Reuters that the WELT am Sonntag report was accurate: "We confirm the report in the WELT am Sonntag," a spokesperson said.
Health ministry seems to confirm it. Calling Fake News on an article without any evidence comes across as needlessly partisan.
Yeah and if you read the Reuters report it says the exact opposite of this business insider drivel.
> The U.S. government has spoken with many (more than 25) companies that claim they can help with a vaccine. Most of these companies already received seed funding from U.S. investors... any solution found would be shared with the world
The contentious claim of exclusivity is from an anonymous source and is denied by both the company and the US government. So how can the German health ministry possibly know otherwise?
The only official agreement is that “We confirm the report in the WELT am Sonntag,” quote, but it's not clear what exactly they confirmed. From referenced article, it seem to be only “The German government is very interested in ensuring that vaccines and active substances against the new coronavirus are also developed in Germany and Europe.” and “In this regard, the government is in intensive exchange with the company CureVac,”.
The story is outrageous. However, how many of you here on HN throw up a red flag when an article uses the word "poach" around scientists and engineers?
I'm permanently distrustful when I start to hear this word. I think this was a result of being an engineer in Silicon Valley from the late 90s through 2010 or so. The large Silicon Valley employers (the ones lobbying congress about a shortage of engineers) were clearly involved in an absolutely loathsome no-poach collusion to suppress wages.
This doesn't mean I automatically reject the possibility of bad faith when I read stories about "poaching". For example I do agree that USC crossed a line and acted reprehensibly when it "poached" UCSD's Alzheimer's research lab. But I still want to know how much the UCSD scientists were getting paid relative to the housing market nearby (in this case, La Jolla, CA). This info is almost never included in the articles (just like the press is willing to report about how a tech CEO is experiencing hiring difficulties without once mentioning the salary offered).
This article suggests something more akin to the USC/UCSD scenario, where it's more than merely hiring away talent. I'd just like a little more information about what they mean by "poached". What were the working conditions and salaries for the German scientists getting "poached"? Are these scientists superstars? You know what large law firms, investment banks, tech companies (post-collusion), and sports teams pay superstars to keep them from being "poached"?
The word "poached" implies that engineers and scientists, among others, are not truly free agents, but are owned in some way by their employers - and this worms its way into policy (for example, in how H1B visas are actually controlled by the employer, not bestowed directly onto the employee and/or would-be immigrant). I reject this.
In case you only read the headline (which seems to be about every comment in here):
Responding to the report, a U.S. official said: “This story is wildly overplayed. The U.S. government has spoken with many (more than 25) companies that claim they can help with a vaccine. Most of these companies already received seed funding from U.S. investors.”
“We will continue to talk to any company that claims to be able to help. And any solution found would be shared with the world,” the U.S. official added.
A German Health Ministry spokeswoman, confirming a quote in the newspaper, said: “The German government is very interested in ensuring that vaccines and active substances against the new coronavirus are also developed in Germany and Europe.”
Welt am Sonntag quoted an unidentified German government source as saying Trump was trying to secure the scientists’ work exclusively, and would do anything to get a vaccine for the United States, “but only for the United States.”
The German government believes it enough that Jens Spahn, their Health Minister, is on the record as saying a US takeover of CureVac won't be allowed to happen, and CureVac removed their (American) CEO last week (following a meeting with Trump, Pence, and other American pharma industry CEOs):
The German interior minister refused to comment but also refused to deny the reports and said it would be discussed in the German government crisis committee -- if it's a made up allegation, a denial would be a cheap and easy way of defusing it. Ergo, there's fire beneath the smoke.
Good catch. I have turned a game into matching stories with their headlines.
This is fun to do with buddies over email.
Get any newspaper. Cut out the stories and cut off the headlines. Now try to match them. You will often ask yourself questions like “how did they get this from that?” I like to blend stories from different sources, including known misinformation, and seeing what happens.
Without doping the story with the headlines sensationalism, the mainstream news is actually pretty tame.
Not voting means you trust the decisions of the people who do vote. So it's like voting for the winner, whoever that might be. In that sense, the vast majority of Americans caused Trump to be elected.
On the other hand, after giving it some thought. I know many American people, some of them voted for Trump. These people are nothing like him. I have no bad experience with any American I know and hold no bad feelings towards the people or the country. Maybe the system isn’t working.
The electoral college exists precisely so that population alone isn't the determiner. So it actually does what it is, in fact, intended to do.
It's designed that way so that bigger states with more people don't have cart blanche and smaller states with fewer people don't get just trampled underfoot.
You can debate if it's really a good thing that we have a system in place to try to balance out such things, but asserting that the electoral college doesn't work because Trump won with fewer votes basically says "I don't actually understand the thing."
Yes of course it does, but my opinion is it doesn't work to get the best and brightest mind into the white house...so in that sense it is broken. Thanks.
Withholding access to a vaccine to a disease that is causing thousands of victims, thousands of deaths, would be quite literally a crime against humanity. To even consider the idea, presumably for political purposes, is insane.
The company itself has put out a statement that it's false news. And Reuters has now edited their article and removed the part which said it was confirmed by government official.
Divide and conquer - the single strategy that has consistently worked to defeat and/or control humans throughout all of history.
If you trace back to the owners of the parent companies of the media outlets printing stories like this, you are left with a handful of individuals with a very clear anti-Trump agenda. They push stories like this to divide the populace, because a divided populace is easier to control and steer towards the media's own agenda. Need to think for yourselves rather than let the media tell you what to think!
"A U.S. official said: “This story is wildly overplayed … We will continue to talk to any company that claims to be able to help. And any solution found would be shared with the world.”
110% they misunderstood the US Government offering them exclusive rights in the US market, not for the US market.
The foundation of this article is so stupid, even CNN couldn't propose it with a straight face.
129 comments
[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 182 ms ] threadThat doesn't make it good or evil. People are good and evil. The policies they apply can have good and evil effects. Capitalism can be employed to raise the poor out of poverty, or to keep them there. It can be used to effectively help the sick, or ignore them.
Constrained capitalism coupled with sensible policies, kind, honorable people to administer them, and communities with a sense of charity to share the benefits produce some of the best results the world has ever seen. But it is the quality of people in which we're lacking. Confiscation and coercion won't improve things, it always makes bad situations worse. We need administrators more interested in making the government work for the governed than for the governing. We've not had that for quite some time.
For example, capitalist incentives do not encourage corporations and businesses to be able to handle a crisis like this, instead they encourage to pay out as much as possible to their owners & execs - skipping a "bad times" margin. To add insult to injury the larger corps can feel safe with this behavior since they'll get bailed out by the state.
Translate: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https...
How would you explain Trump's "America First" when the solution isn't coming from the US. I hope he gets what he asked for, having to admit that the possible solution is coming from a ally.
( I'm not talking about Americans in general fyi. I hope the vaccine will be available to all)
I am loving how this epidemic is exposing all of our system's flaws.
Edit: the old CEO was American, he was replaced with a German founder. So that narrows it down.
There'll be plenty of time after the crisis to bring out the guillotines.
This needs to be achieved by the EU leveraging as much cash as it can from other countries with an agreement to distribute the vaccine by some WHO index of need. In this way, you outbid the US by showing collaboration works.
We can't waver on global health priorities, but let the USA admin shout its way into darkness alone and not drag in global cooperation with it.
Agree with the rest, but sanctions don't hurt the people who actually came up with this shitty idea. It ends up hurting the normal guy on the road, who will probably not endorse the idea in the first place.
What law was broken? Its like saying HBO breaks a law by having their shows exclusive to their subscriber base.
Not everything should be looked at with legal lens. Moral and ethical codes have much higher standards than legal, ya know?
(Though this would all probably swept aside as soon as somebody reverse engineers the vaccine.)
The normal day folks like us bear the biggest (by a large margin) brunt of the sanctions whereas the rich and ruling class go about their day merrily. Sure they'll encounter some inconvenience like not being able to travel to certain countries or being able to expand their businesses as much as they wish to, but they live in secluded districts with 24-hour electricity while us plebes get 12 hour electricity every day (This is just to mention the least annoying effect of artificial scarcity created by sanctions; the government couldn't get parts nor get training on technical know-how to fix/upgrade the hydro generators because of the sanctions).
A lot of people starves and the education system suffer, which sets the entire generation backward by at least 3 decades (while the rich and ruling class send their kids to international schools and then at institutions in nearby neighboring countries; some even went as far as faking their children's identities and sent them to places like Australia, Canada and even US to study).
Sanctions aren't that effective and they only hurt (and kill) the people at the bottom of the society.
Having the mot bags of rice, or the largest cattle herd only makes one feel rich if they don’t know about the existence of other luxuries. Sooner or later, someone will think I’d we simply off the king, we could have power AND an end to sanctions.
The quickest and most effective way to transform an authoritarian country for the better is to let the rich, the poor and the middle class have a taste of what quality living (to some extent, the capitalism) is like. Then their children will get proper education and things will automatically change for the better in a generation at most. I have seen that with the children of the rich and military/ruling class people in my home country; these younger generations are the ones who, using their parents' accumulated enormous wealth and influence, to make changes (some bad, some pretty decent) to copy what they've tasted in other, more developed countries.
> Americans are not individually responsible for our governments actions any more than a German is responsible for the historical actions of theirs.
It is funny when it comes to Iran, your politicians use the exact opposite logic.
>Agree with the rest, but sanctions don't hurt the people who actually came up with this shitty idea. It ends up hurting the normal guy on the road, who will probably not endorse the idea in the first place.
When you say this in the response of sanctioning the USA, but don't say that when sanctioning other countries, that does only one meaning. You don't care about ordinary people from other countries (although you claim you do). Which makes you a hypocrite.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/09/30/trump...
Weaponizing vaccine development in the middle of a public health crisis must violate some German law or another.
Publishing the emails, calls, and efforts Trump made to secure an exclusive virus would just play into his hands and provide a huge boost to his political campaign. As past scandals have shown, there is no such thing as bad press for him.
So deny him the press and the coverage and let this blow over quietly until Nov 4. And then go nuts publishing all the details.
"As an American citizen" - buddy we are not known for our intelligence or our honor so I don't know what relevance you think that has.
And yes there is such a thing as bad press before an election. That's why politicians go to huge lengthsto bury stories before elections.
Speaking as an American citizen, that cracks me up.
What do you think are going to be the actual repercussions, in the US, of learning that the US president is trying to secure exclusive US control of a vaccine for COVID19 for priority distribution in the US?
They aren't going to be any. Indeed, to his base, stuff like this is exactly why they voted for him. (If Trump had succeeded in securing that vaccine solely for the US, he would win in November in a landslide.) And that's pretty much the extent of the calculations that went on in his head when he attempted this stunt.
It's a good thing he failed. But let's be responsible about disclosure and time it so that he can't derive any political benefit from it.
[edit: too many "any"]
His actions on this matter won't change anyone's mind already opposed to him, but it might get a few supporters off the couch in November.
He can always be exposed again November 5th. As the impeachment demonstrates, the threat of exposure is far more damaging to Trump than the exposure itself.
G'Kar: To the Narn Homeword, of course. You came with ships, and guns, and mass drivers. You plucked asteroids out of near orbit and sent them plunging down onto our cities, killing men and women and children. Onto the sick and the infirm and the innocent.
Londo Molari: It was not my idea. I didn't even know. It was Refa. It was not my fault. I said ...
G'Kar: You said nothing. You said Nothing. You said NOTHING. Nothing.
Londo Molari: Leave me alone.
G'Kar: No. Look at me.
Londo Molari: I can't.
G'Kar: LOOK AT ME.
G'Kar: Do you remember this place?
Londo Molari: Yes.
G'Kar: I was tortured in this place. I as whipped. Emperor Cartasia wanted to hear me scream.
Londo Molari: Yes, and if you did not scream, the 40th stroke of the whip would kill you. And your people would be slaves forever. Yes.
G'Kar: You remember.
Londo Molari: Yes.
G'Kar: You were there.
Londo Molari: Yes!
G'Kar: And you said ...nothing.
Emperor Cartasia: Thirty four. Thirty five. Thirty six.
G'Kar: Nothing.
Emperor Cartasia: Thirty seven. Thirty eight.
G'Kar: Nothing!
Emperor Cartasia: Thirty nine.
G'Kar: AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
G'Kar: One word, Molarri. One word was all that was required of you.
Londo Molari: It would not have mattered. It wouldn't have changed anything. It would not have stopped.
G'Kar: You're wrong, Mollari. Whether it was me or my world, whether it was a total stranger, or your worst enemy.
YOU WERE A WITNESS!
IT DOESN'T MATTER IF THEY'D STOP!
IT DOESN'T MATTER IF THEY'D LISTEN!
YOU HAD AN OBLIGATION TO SPEAK OUT!!!
Londo Molari: I couldn't.
G'Kar: And that's why you don't deserve to be Emperor. And that's why you don't deserve to live.
I'm saying they shouldn't release the details right now because right now those details are great for Trump.
Irresponsible disclosure is just as bad as non-disclosure.
You're perpetuating the myth that Trump is invincible, that "there is no such thing as bad press for him", and echoing his enablers who are whining that "now is not the time for finger pointing and talking about the past, there will be a time for that later", at the same time that Trump himself is doing nothing but finger pointing and talking about the past.
If finger pointing and talking about the past is so ineffective and off-limits, then why is Trump doing it so much, why are his allies breathlessly admonishing everyone else not to do it, and why do you think at the same time that Trump is so invincible?
As for paragraph two, it's not a myth. It's been the last 4 years of reality. One more minor scandal won't make a difference compared to the things he's already gotten away with, and in this respect we disagree on whether it's actually a scandal for him (which you believe) or it's pandering to his base (which I believe).
It's not about making the past off-limits, it's about taking away a campaign point from Trump. What Trump tried to do is not a scandal to him. It is not a bad thing to his supporters. THEY WANT HIM TO DO STUFF LIKE THIS. And publicizing that is just giving him free publicity that will make his supporters more motivated to show up to re-elect him in November. Is that what you want?
I mean, there's been almost 5 years of bad press for him (discounting everything before late 2015) and it hasn't really affected how the GOP treat him (like a king) or how his base seem him (like a saviour king.)
> Trump is invincible
Until the media and the GOP start doing a better job, yeah, he pretty much is, unfortunately.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/15/coronavirus-germany-tries-to...
This I don't understand. I don't have a right to nutritious food - I have to work to get that. Where do these rights come from?
Many, many people would disagree with that statement. Who says you don't have a right to nutritious food?
To be clear I’m not saying i think we should keep good food from people - of course not. But many many people are rightfully dubious of positive rights.
There are other options than this false dichotomy. We could all chip in, relative to our means, to ensure a baseline of healthy food is available to all. I neither serve food nor labor in the fields, and yet I'm pretty sure I could be part of a solution that ensures everyone gets basic healthy food even if they cannot/do not work.
You can do more labor or less labor. You can do more valuable labor or less valuable labor. You are not forced to labor, but you are required to give up a portion of what you choose to undertake.
The British philosopher, and socialist, Bertrand Russell visited Russia just a few years after the revolution and summarized his thoughts regarding the bolsheviks in his "The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism"[0], 1920, in which he basically summarizes his thoughts like this:
"I am compelled to reject Bolshevism for two reasons: First, because the price mankind must pay to achieve Communism by Bolshevik methods is too terrible; and secondly because, even after paying the price, I do not believe the result would be what the Bolsheviks profess to desire."
It's an interesting historical document of a turbulent time, and not socialist theory heavy, so recommended reading for the curious. It's also an example of how socialism is a broad topic, both then and now, not just another word for Bolshevism.
[0] http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/17350/pg17350.txt
* USA acquires a Vaccine * USA Gov. gives the vaccine to some big pharma corp. * Big pharma will patent the vaccine * The world will be sued by big pharma if it come up with a vaccine
A COVID19 vaccine would definitely fall into that category. So unless there's something unique about the process of making the vaccine that is difficult to replicate, an "exclusive US patent" means nothing.
If you abuse it you lose it.
Since I got a few downvotes, I figured I should support this statement with a reference. What's more "America First" than making sure only America gets a vaccine?
https://www.promiseskept.com/about/
While serving in office, President Trump has continuously delivered for the American people to put America First both at home and abroad.
America developing a vaccine first and sharing it with the world for free would be more "America First."
That such an idea sounds laughable shows the effects of 20 years of neoliberal wankery mushing the brains of Americans.
America First is a different concept, and would be more like developing a vaccine and making sure Americans are vaccinated before anyone in other countries. But in this case we may not be the first to develop it so we want to buy it for ourselves.
Imagine the reaction from Trump's base if he could tell them that "he" secured a vaccine that will only be available to Americans.
To be clear, I'd much rather see America (or any country) develop a vaccine and share it to the world free of royalties, but at least in America, that's not the political climate we live in.
On April 12, 1955, the day the Salk vaccine was declared “safe, effective and potent,” legendary CBS newsman Edward R. Morrow interviewed its creator and asked who owned the patent. “Well, the people, I would say,” said Salk in light of the millions of charitable donations raised by the March of Dimes that funded the vaccine’s research and field testing. “There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?” Lawyers for the foundation had investigated the possibility of patenting the vaccine but did not pursue it, in part because of Salk’s reluct
> "As a consequence, the company is in contact with especially CEPI and many other organizations and authorities worldwide, however abstains from commenting on speculations and rejects allegations about offers for acquisition of the company or its technology."
https://www.curevac.com/news/curevac-focuses-on-the-developm...
Health ministry seems to confirm it. Calling Fake News on an article without any evidence comes across as needlessly partisan.
> The U.S. government has spoken with many (more than 25) companies that claim they can help with a vaccine. Most of these companies already received seed funding from U.S. investors... any solution found would be shared with the world
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-german...
The only official agreement is that “We confirm the report in the WELT am Sonntag,” quote, but it's not clear what exactly they confirmed. From referenced article, it seem to be only “The German government is very interested in ensuring that vaccines and active substances against the new coronavirus are also developed in Germany and Europe.” and “In this regard, the government is in intensive exchange with the company CureVac,”.
I'm permanently distrustful when I start to hear this word. I think this was a result of being an engineer in Silicon Valley from the late 90s through 2010 or so. The large Silicon Valley employers (the ones lobbying congress about a shortage of engineers) were clearly involved in an absolutely loathsome no-poach collusion to suppress wages.
This doesn't mean I automatically reject the possibility of bad faith when I read stories about "poaching". For example I do agree that USC crossed a line and acted reprehensibly when it "poached" UCSD's Alzheimer's research lab. But I still want to know how much the UCSD scientists were getting paid relative to the housing market nearby (in this case, La Jolla, CA). This info is almost never included in the articles (just like the press is willing to report about how a tech CEO is experiencing hiring difficulties without once mentioning the salary offered).
This article suggests something more akin to the USC/UCSD scenario, where it's more than merely hiring away talent. I'd just like a little more information about what they mean by "poached". What were the working conditions and salaries for the German scientists getting "poached"? Are these scientists superstars? You know what large law firms, investment banks, tech companies (post-collusion), and sports teams pay superstars to keep them from being "poached"?
The word "poached" implies that engineers and scientists, among others, are not truly free agents, but are owned in some way by their employers - and this worms its way into policy (for example, in how H1B visas are actually controlled by the employer, not bestowed directly onto the employee and/or would-be immigrant). I reject this.
Responding to the report, a U.S. official said: “This story is wildly overplayed. The U.S. government has spoken with many (more than 25) companies that claim they can help with a vaccine. Most of these companies already received seed funding from U.S. investors.”
“We will continue to talk to any company that claims to be able to help. And any solution found would be shared with the world,” the U.S. official added.
A German Health Ministry spokeswoman, confirming a quote in the newspaper, said: “The German government is very interested in ensuring that vaccines and active substances against the new coronavirus are also developed in Germany and Europe.”
Welt am Sonntag quoted an unidentified German government source as saying Trump was trying to secure the scientists’ work exclusively, and would do anything to get a vaccine for the United States, “but only for the United States.”
Viral pandemics don't respect frontiers.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/16/not-for-sale-a...
The German interior minister refused to comment but also refused to deny the reports and said it would be discussed in the German government crisis committee -- if it's a made up allegation, a denial would be a cheap and easy way of defusing it. Ergo, there's fire beneath the smoke.
This is fun to do with buddies over email. Get any newspaper. Cut out the stories and cut off the headlines. Now try to match them. You will often ask yourself questions like “how did they get this from that?” I like to blend stories from different sources, including known misinformation, and seeing what happens.
Without doping the story with the headlines sensationalism, the mainstream news is actually pretty tame.
Hold my vaccine vial...
that's questionable
I understand how the presidential election work in the USA. But people always have a choice.
It's designed that way so that bigger states with more people don't have cart blanche and smaller states with fewer people don't get just trampled underfoot.
You can debate if it's really a good thing that we have a system in place to try to balance out such things, but asserting that the electoral college doesn't work because Trump won with fewer votes basically says "I don't actually understand the thing."
It works exactly as it was designed to work.
If you trace back to the owners of the parent companies of the media outlets printing stories like this, you are left with a handful of individuals with a very clear anti-Trump agenda. They push stories like this to divide the populace, because a divided populace is easier to control and steer towards the media's own agenda. Need to think for yourselves rather than let the media tell you what to think!