Ebola Crapola

The Ebola story has hit full force recently in the media, causing many people to form irrational conclusions based on ignorance, suspicion, and hype.  Today alone I saw a FOX News anchor babbling for a half an hour about it, read the opinions of some who attribute the stock market decline to it, and came across a story of a Texas congreeman who theorized that Obama is allowing it to spread so that he can declare an emergency and increase his executive powers.  Have we taken leave of our senses?

First of all let's establish what Ebola is.  It's a virus that is spread by contact with bodily fluids.  It's not as difficult to contract as HIV, but it's not as easy to contract as influenza either.  And while in the past it has been said to have a 90% mortality rate, this time around it's more like 60%.  And we should remember that the high mortality rate in Africa is largely due to their living conditions and culture. 
Secondly, let's remember that the DOW has recently been setting record highs of over 17,000 so a little profit-taking was in order.  Bear markets aren't triggered by unfounded fears of epidemics.  They're brought about by hard numbers from the business and financial worlds.  My guess is that by the end of the year we'll see the DOW approaching yet another record high.  (10/31/2014  .... UPDATE!!!  That was fast!  The DOW hit a new high today.   12/5/14 ... DOW approaching 18,000!) 

And finally, the idea that Obama is in any way basing his lack of an urgent response on some sinister motivation is not only baseless, it's embarrassingly stupid.  Just as with his response to the ISIS situation I attribute Obama's slow Ebola response to nothing more than incompetence.  Enough with the partisan conspiracy crap. 

Pandemic pandemoneum is nothing new.  In 1976 the Swine Flu was blamed for the death of a soldier at Fort Dix, New Jersey but the vaccine for the Swine Flu was blamed for 25 deaths.  In 1997 the Avian flu in Hong Kong was responsible for six deaths, but watching the news you would have thought that the death toll was in the thousands.  In 2003 SARS hit the headlineswhen 8,000 people contracted it leading to 774 deaths.  While this was more serious than the previous two, no deaths were reported in the U.S.  Then there is the West Nile virus, which brought a reported 10,000 cases in the U.S. over the past ten years with a mortality rate of around 5%.  More people die from the flu than that. 

The media loves these stories because most people don't know much about these diseases and in general people fear the unknown, and fear drives ratings.  When the light of truth shines on the subject the fears subside and the ratings dwindle and everybody gets on with their lives.  Such will doubtless be the case with the Ebola story as well.

    

Tony Stewart Cleared

A grand jury has determined that race car driver Tony Stewart will not face criminal charges in the death of fellow racer Kevin Ward on August 9 in upstate New York.  The investigation showed no criminal intent from Stewart's driving, and the toxicology report revealed that Ward had marijuana in his system at the time of the incident, which could explain why he apparently tried to latch on to the wing of Stewart's car as it whizzed by.  This is just one more example of how young people who get high sometimes use bad judgment and get themselves killed. 

 

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Tony Stewart will not be charged by an Ontario County (N.Y.) Grand Jury in the death of Kevin Ward Jr.

The grand jury determined Wednesday that there was no evidence of a criminal act. The case was passed on to the grand jury by Ontario County District Attorney Michael Tantillo last week.

Tantillo said "two dozen" people were interviewed in the case and revealed that toxicology reports determined that Ward had marijuana in his system.

"There is toxicology evidence in the case related to Kevin Ward, that actually indicated at the time of operation that he was under the influence of marijuana," Tantillo said. "There was no toxicology work performed on Tony Stewart, however a certified drug recognition expert had interviewed him on the night of the collision and determined that he found no basis to observe any alcohol consumption or impairment by drugs."

When asked about Ward's toxicology reports, Tantillo said that the amount in his system was "enough to impair judgment."

Tantillo also said that there was no evidence of "aberrational" driving from Stewart before he hit Ward and that it appeared Stewart was driving in a straight line until he hit Ward. Two videos of the accident were used as evidence in the investigation.

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nascar-from-the-marbles/tony-stewart-not-charged-by-grand-jury-in-death-of-kevin-ward-jr-190047656.html

Forbes on Obama and the Economy

I named this blog The Snow Monkey in part because it is a counterintuitive concept since monkeys typically live in tropical regions.  I often see things different from the majority, and I don't subscribe to the idea that one party is good and the other is evil.

After the 9/11 attacks Democrats were blaming Bush for not acting on intelligence advisories (or for actually conducting a false flag operation) and Republicans were blaming Clinton for not taking bin Laden out when he had the opportunity.  I felt that there was plenty of blame to go around.  When Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011 Democrats were saying that Obama succeeded where Bush failed.  Republicans were saying that Obama didn't get him, our military did.  My take on it was "Why do people insist on partisanship at a time like this?  You have to give Obama credit for authorizing the mission, but at the same time you can't seriously believe that none of the groundwork for that mission was laid during the Bush administration.  Why can't we just be happy that he's dead and say 'Good for us!  We finally got that bastard.  GO AMERICA!' ? "

In order to see things objectively you have to leave the two-party mentality behind and drop the partisan talking points.  That's true when it comes to foreign policy and it's equally true when it comes to the economy.  Take this week's Forbes article, for example.

This is the best private sector jobs creation performance in American history

“What’s now clear is that the Obama administration policies have outperformed the Reagan administration policies for job creation and unemployment reduction.  Even though Reagan had the benefit of a growing Boomer class to ignite economic growth, while Obama has been forced to deal with a retiring workforce developing special needs. During the eight years preceding Obama there was a net reduction in jobs in America.  We now are rapidly moving toward higher, sustainable jobs growth.”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhartung/2014/09/05/obama-outperforms-reagan-on-jobs-growth-and-investing/


The article goes on to state that the average stock market returns during the Obama administration are better than those of the Reagan administration.  Had this come from a left-wing publication or MSNBC it might be suspect, but Forbes has never been known as a liberal magazine.  The polls may not reflect this but Obama has presided over an impressive economic recovery.  We can debate all day long what these numbers mean, but the idea that Obama has wrecked the economy is now hard to accept. 

Personally I believe that the economy is cyclical and that presidents get too much of the credit in good times and too much blame in the bad times.  I do feel that Reagan was a bit of an exception because his administration marked a transformation in how we view the role of government and the progressive tax system.  Supply-side economics, referred to as "vodoo economics" by some of his opponents including his own VP, was a radical concept at the time and the Reagan Revolution included that as part of its platform.

As for Clinton, he was fortunate enough to take office at a time when the technology revolution and the worldwide web produced an incredible economic boom that eventually went bust at the end of his term.  I will credit Clinton (and Greenspan) for managing the growth fairly well, but it would be a bit of a stretch to say that he produced it, despite the fact that his vice-president took partial credit for creating the internet. 

Bush took office less than a year after the dotcom bubble burst and inherited a sluggish economy that eventually plunged into a recession following 9/11.  Despite the obstacles he faced the economy rebounded and grew steadily from 2003-2008, only to tank again as a result of the financial meltdown of 2008 where again, there was plenty of blame to go around.

Obama inherited a mess and has constantly reminded us of that fact, but now with this latest report he can honestly say that things have indeed turned around.  How much of this is cyclical and how much is due to Obama's leadership is certainly debatable but the facts are there for all to see, and if this trend continues as the article suggests it will be hard for the Republicans to make a strong argument for changing parties in 2016 based on the economy.