(02-26-2020 03:26 PM)Hambone10 Wrote: yeah... no way it was planned.
If they'd wanted it to get out, they would have infected 5 people, had them cross the borders in some form of quarantine, and then leave the area for their targets from those other places. No way they cause so much damage to themselves on purpose.
The disease could have been an economic bio-weapon, but if so... it's one in a fairly long line of similar ones. Why wouldn't they have also created a vaccine for themselves? Very smart in some ways, insanely foolish in others if it was a weapon
I don't think we want to go down this road of speculation at this time. But obviously it could have been the release of a weaponized virus. But just as obviously it could have been an accidental release of a weaponized virus. It hits what most viruses hit, the elderly and the young. The elderly in any nation state is part of the overhead and not part of the production. The very young in an overpopulated area can't be controlled effectively without drawing the ire of the people upon the government. Regardless if you are a capitalist or communist your family is your family and I have known former Chinese communists who have naturalized and sacrifice greatly to try to bring their families out of that system.
So far all indications but one is that this is either a natural mutation from eating an obscure meat in a wet market, though that has fallen under suspicion by those researching the disease external China, or it could well be the accidental release from a biological warfare research center located in Wuhan.
If so outbreaks in North Korea (denied but believed to be real) and South Korea are both believable due to shared weapons and political ties with the North and manufacturing ties with the South. Hong Kong is also believable as in Iran who is a weapons trading partner and who also likely receives fissile material from the Chinese.
The cases in Northern Italy near the Alps are the real mystery here. They likely have a plausible explanation but if you wanted to release a biological pathogen in a less scrutinized and secure area that would have access to the rest of Europe this is a great spot in that due to the nature of the EU travel is easily accessed, it wouldn't be an area likely to be first monitored for the spread of the disease and with normal portability of people in business within the EU it reaches everywhere and the places it reaches aren't on quarantine from the U.S..
And as to the spread of the virus in China, real pandemics strike across class lines, all ages, and kill indiscriminately. If there are no deaths among the elderly Chinese leadership it may be a tell that there is a vaccine and that the government counted 2% to be acceptable losses to release the pathogen with plausible deniability that would make a unilateral strike from an adversarial power highly unlikely.
Also, it means that China is in recovery when the other economic zones are in shut down, so what they lose initially they regain exponentially when they are up and running while everyone else is down and if it eliminates the elderly and reduces a little of their population what have they lost?
If the U.S. loses close to a year of its productivity the dollar's value as World Reserve Currency drops significantly at a time when Gold is going up, and China has been one of the major purchasers of Gold over the last 3 decades that helps China. They have plans to back the renminbi with 10% gold backing. So as Gold goes up a renminbi backed by Gold would also rise against the value of a fiat currency like the Dollar which is backed by GDP as much as anything.
If the dollar loses credibility while the renminbi gains strength then replacing the dollar as the World Reserve Currency becomes more likely and if that happens it inflates expenses in the U.S. by over 30% overnight and makes China the center of global trade. And with the EU in a state of flux and with Italy being the largest debtor in the EU in a position of shut down that could collapse the value of the Euro and that too becomes a motive. Without Great Britain, Germany cannot cover the debt of Italy, Spain, Greece, and Portugal, nor can the Northern European members.
So if you want a motive there you have it. If you want a strategy and explanation as to why they would permit this within their own country, you have it.
Does that mean any of this is planned? Absolutely not, but we would be foolish to dismiss the idea out of hand.
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Market falls 2/24 - Virus or Communist?
