Month: December 2020

Are We Becoming the USSR?

Dave Davis Commentary, Policy, The Long Journey to "More", Uncategorized
Artificial Sun" nuclear fusion reactor
Artificial Sun” nuclear fusion reactor

1.5% wind and solar, 2.6% Hydro, and 1.7% nuclear are the amounts of the world’s energy consumption these sources provided in 2019. The other 94% came from fossil fuels. Yet, much of the advanced world is setting limits and goals for certain products and actions for the future. Japan plans to stop the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035. This plan is similar to moves by California and several European nations. By the mid-2030s, if you want a new car, you’ll only be able to buy an electric one.

This program sounds like part of a government 15-year plan. A significant industry will have to revamp its products in a specific time frame or else. Wow, a time-specific government-directed industrial plan. Can we all sing a chorus of “Back in the USSR?” In my series “The Long Journey To More,” I expressed the feeling capitalistic countries would out-perform China or any other totalitarian state. Greater flexibility would fuel a growing efficiency-innovation gap. A totalitarian government would double down on planning until it ended up as a closed society such as North Korea or collapse like the Soviet Union.

This assertion assumed we would avoid top-down planning. The actions we are doing in climate change move us away from a supportive government allowing competing solutions. Ordering us to buy only electric new autos sets up a bias towards existing technologies. The objective is less carbon. Most people agree excess carbon in the atmosphere is contributing to global warming. All things being equal, people choose cleaner carbon-free energy sources. At present, Wind or Solar have it politically over carbon-emitting production. Unfortunately, the wind doesn’t always blow, and the sun doesn’t always shine. Nuclear is reliable but under cost and regulatory constraints. With the new administration, new fossil fuel use will be difficult and discouraged.

Now we are looking forward to millions upon millions of motor vehicles needing a plugin. The additional electricity will have to come from somewhere. Irrational fear raising costs blocks nuclear. Governments are increasingly are limiting or making it difficult to increase fossil fuel use.With realities after 2035, industries have no choice but to make significant capital spending plans utilizing Solar and wind.

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Are We Doing Our Best to Save Lives?

Dave Davis Commentary, COVID-19, Policy

I was watching an interview with Health and Human Services Secretay Alex Asar on TV. The conversation was mostly about the rollout of the COViD-19 vaccines. However, when he asked about the new treatments, my ears perked up. The treatments that put President Trump right back n his feet after being infected. Secretary Asar said the combination of monoclonal Antibodies, Remdesivir, and steroids were now widely available. However, in many cases, he lamented doctors weren’t using them early enough—this problem-centered on monoclonal antibodies. Waiting till a patient ends up in the hospital may be too late to be effective.

Confirmation of this problem wasn’t long in coming. On Face the Nation, Eli Lily CEO David Ricks complained his company’s monoclonal antibody treatment was piling up unused in warehouses. The monoclonal antibody regimen needs infusion centers. We’ve done this for chemotherapy for decades. Of course, they take place in different places. Ricks implored people at high-risk testing positive or with symptoms to ask their doctor about the treatment’s availability. Do we have to ask for the treatment the President received?

This revelation was dismaying. We have known almost from the pandemic’s beginning the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions are the ones most at risk. The vast majority of these people are under a doctor’s care. How hard is it to start the regimen as soon as someone reports symptoms or tests positive? The doctors should know where the patient can get treated and send them there. If it isn’t available, the doctors need to determine why not and push to rectify the situation. The at-risk are the ones jamming the hospital ICUs and, unfortunately, dying.

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We Need A Change

Dave Davis Commentary, Dave's Healthcare Plan, Policy, The Future Party

More than ever, we have to open up our political system to new ideas. Both parties have grown stale in their approach to long-standing problems. Take healthcare. The Democrats, no matter what they say, want a single-payer system. Everything else is just a way to get there. The Republicans seem to have a brain freeze—a few changes around the edges, but no real plan. There is nothing attractive about the rationing that’s always part of a single-payer system or our current very costly approach. Other countries, such as Singapore, have had great success in moving a new direction.

The problem is, if one side proposes something different, the other dismisses it out of hand. Worse, each exists in its bubble. One side might not even be aware of what the other is discussing. Unfortunately, we have too many examples of mutual exclusion.

Before the election, A major American newspaper, the New York Post, published a story potentially damaging to Joe Biden. A laptop allegedly belonging to Joe Biden’s son Hunter was found. Some emails casting doubt on Hunter’s business practices and showing his father’s knowledge of them was on it. I have no special powers to establish the truth of the situation, but at a minimum, we would expect Hunter and his father to contest the story’s veracity. We never heard the father or son’s defense because no one asked. Also, Big Tech limited the story’s spread. It took over three years to find Trump wasn’t Putin’s agent. It would be nice to know the Bidens aren’t in hock to China and others.

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Following Up

Dave Davis Commentary, COVID-19, Policy

I wrote about some things in the past that I need to follow -up on

.President-Elect Biden is about to ask America to wear masks for the next hundred days. I pointed out in my last post, 85% already are wearing masks. If this widespread mask usage hasn’t made a dent in the spread of COVID-19 spread, it’s hard to see a few more % would make a significant difference. A big problem is most people are wearing masks doing little to stop the spread. It appears some still aren’t convinced of this fact.

I just finished Alex Berensen’s third small book in his “Untold Truths about COVID-19 and LockDowns” series. I’ve highly recommended the previous two for getting a handle on what the COVID-19 data tells us. This one has been out for a few weeks, but Amazon only notified me a couple of days ago. It seems Amazon again held up his book. As luck would have it, the book is all about masks. It not only backs up what I wrote but does it in greater depth. If only we could get Joe Biden to read it.

What worries me is these less than 10% effective masks give people a false sense of safety, especially the at-risk. Seeing the elderly going in and out of stores wearing the same thin cloth masks as the rest of the shoppers should be a cause for concern. Maybe this explains why so many older people are still dying. Instead of having the proper PPE wherever the vulnerable are present, we tout Universal wearing masks unlikely to protect. These cloth masks aren’t much more than a virtue-signaling fashion statement.

Worse, several researchers at well-known Universities found social distancing is declining. We know distance is a good bet to prevent infection. Could the widely promoted idea of masks are protective encourage people to get closer than is safe? After all, the vast majority of people are wearing masks, and cases are still rising. What we need are masks that work. Maybe Honeywell and others will provide them to the general public soon.

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