While the mortality rate has not been high the economic damage will be significant world wide.

Which negatively impacts the country that developed it----another reason it's unlikely to be a bioweapon

This is real.......
 

For those that don't believe we are in a national emergency and will face a long term crisis, I ask you to post a comment on June 1 and tell us what you think then. Unfortunately you will see 20%+ unemployment, thousands of people who planned to retire to The Villages not being able to afford it, housing prices falling, and many other factors that will forever change your life. If you are fortunate enough to have money and can live your life as usual, good for you.

I hope I am dead wrong. I, unfortunately, am one of the affected ones that lost his job and can no longer retire and move to TV as planned this summer.

Really? Check the numbers coming out of Italy.

Don’t agree
 

I don’t agree, a hard hitting bio weapon, would result in immediate and catastrophic retaliation, this one is definitely crippling the West’s economies and cause massive social unrest and upheaval, with the only winner apparent at the moment, being the Chinese economy, with the country bragging that their production is almost back to full production. - Whilst I don’t want to appear paranoid, I am highly suspicious that this is far more than an accident by a secretive and oppressive regime, that wouldn’t think twice about sacrificing a few thousand elderly Chinese if it brought them world wide economic domination.

Including to China itself. :oops:

Kinda like designing a gun, where the barrel is aimed at...the one pulling the trigger. :1rotfl:

But to unleash it on your own population just doesn't seem like a solid strategy. To not have a treatment/cure/preventive for your own people doesn't seem smart either.

As for the politics, well you never want to let a good crisis go to waste and it's easy to blame the guy in charge when "acts of god" happen.

I'd say the transparency over the last week or so has been pretty damn impressive by the current administration.

PS why do we call terrible natural disasters "acts of god" anyway??

I’m sorry this happened to you. I wish you the best and hope that sometime in the not-too-distant future you will be in a position to make your move.

Ye Gods!
All we need is a few little green men from Roswell, and we wil have a full house!:icon_wink:

Housing prices will plunge like they did in 2008, so you may still be able to buy when you retire

The idea that China would unleash something on its own population is just too funny to comment on.

We call disasters “act of God” because we would desperately like to blame somebody, and when there is nobody then we can blame it on God. Makes us feel better that somebody is responsible, and insurance companies can say, well, they can’t be responsible for the works of the Creator, can they?

No, the Chinese are not stupid indeed. Unlike Americans, however, they think strategically and longer term and make big picture cost/benefit tradeoffs. It’s not beyond the pale the CCP leadership could view destruction of the American economy as being worth x,000 domestic Chinese deaths. The Axis powers in WWII could only dream about impacting our economy the way the Wuhan virus has already done, and only to get worse.

I hope they did not do it deliberately because that would be an act of war. But even smart enemies can screw up their internal control procedures which is what I think happened. For the time being, that’s my best assessment.

This link pertains to their wet market which is not that distant from their bioweapon labs.

Coronavirus may have originated from Wuhan market - YouTube

In the meantime, take comfort in the Snopes evaluation. I’d seen that analysis earlier. For people who think it’s a conspiracy theory, they can dismiss the possibility of a bioweapon and not deal with it anymore.

However, for those who would like to think more critically about what’s going on here’s a video from a former CIA Chief of Station who’s served in both the Middle East and Far East.

You are being redirected...

Yes, I understand your point and it’s a good one in the classical sense of what a bio-weapon would typically do.

But there’s another way to look at it, because we may now be in a new era. Perhaps we need to invent a different term, something akin to a “bio-economic weapon.” With respect to the American economy, I’d say the Wuhan virus certainly has a high mortality.

An earlier poster said the Chinese are “not stupid.” Actually, I think the Chinese are smarter that we are in many respects.

No that's missing the point yet again and a faulty analogy

One could infer from your statement that you believe "governments" (of any persuasion) and "citizens" are, in effect, one and the same. Governments (including the U.S. government) have foisted MANY horrific acts upon their people in history, not to mention millions killed by their own governments (genocide) - google it!

Not so far-fetched of a concept

Fred