China Is Blocking the WHO From Investigating the Origins of the Coronavirus (nytimes.com) 154
schwit1 writes: The coronavirus was first reported to have originated at an animal market in Wuhan, China... While an investigation into the origins of the coronavirus could help prevent future pandemics, China is not allowing the W.H.O. to conduct an independent probe of the matter, according to internal documents and interviews by the New York Times.
"It was an absolute whitewash," Lawrence O. Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University, told the Times regarding the agency's investigation. "But the answer was, that was the best they could negotiate with Xi Jinping."
"It was an absolute whitewash," Lawrence O. Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University, told the Times regarding the agency's investigation. "But the answer was, that was the best they could negotiate with Xi Jinping."
No way..... (Score:2)
China, not being transparent?? No way!
Seriously, are you surprised?
US has no standing to criticize WHO (Score:1, Troll)
So whats WHO supposed to do if the US withdraws support? And Trump himself said he was satsified with China's reporting one this (early on) and withdrew our on the ground inspectors.
Slamming WHO for acquiescing to it's only global partner after the US withdrew an alternative is rediculous. We lost all standing to critisize WHO.
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We lost all standing to critisize WHO.
Who the fuck's this "we" you speak of??
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I don't know why you think the US and China were the only two "global partners" of the WHO wh
Re: US has no standing to criticize WHO (Score:2)
We never had 'on the ground' investigators after the virus spread, China refused to allow them in. Same for WHO researchers.
You seem to have confused with something that happened shortly before the virus outbreak, when researchers returned when their funding was cut.
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It shouldn't be that hard... Let's try it:
#China
{
opacity: 0.1;
}
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Is it a conspiracy theory when they're actually blocking an investigation. No.
Re:No way..... (Score:4, Informative)
Unless that's exactly what happened...
I have no idea, but I have to admit that otherwise it's hard to understand why they did this (as you remarked).
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It is all a matter of face. Countries like Australia lead the way with a forced hostile investigation targeting China, it really takes face away from China, when a middling country like Australia attacks it in that way. From then on in, ZERO, cooperation would come from China as a matter of face. Want to blame someone blame the Australian government for being stupidly and arrogantly undiplomatic. China will conduct the investigation for their own use and will or will not release it.
Face is a big thing in C
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Wish I had mod points. Yep, definitely saving face. If you want to do business in Asia, you need to understand how things work there. "Hurr, durr, we coming in to investigate you and publish a critical report" is a surefire way to get stonewalled.
Even without this Asia-specific issue, what would the US have done if China or the WHO had tried to come in and investigate their handling of the pandemic?
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Tell them to work with the CDC? Oh, that's already been corrupted by the alleged administration, never mind.
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In China, you must register your Conspiracy Theory with the CCP. They will issue your believers special tracking devices implanted under your skin as a token of their loving feeling toward you.
NYT Waits ..color me shocked (Score:2, Informative)
NYT waits to come run an article coming clean about how China's behavior writ covid-19 endangered the entire world, the WHO which Trump wisely cut us out of really is on China's take until the day after the election!
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I also don't understand how this article, if it would have been published prior to the election, would have swayed any voters? The WHO's lack of access to China isn't the WHO's fault. They have no authority to force their way into places countries don'
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That is right it takes a while to put something like this together. So you tell me, you really believe its coincidental a article vindicating the Presidents actions toward the WHO, much the media panned him for runs now, after the election...
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So you tell me, you really believe its coincidental a article vindicating the Presidents actions toward the WHO, much the media panned him for runs now, after the election...
Ahhh. Except that Shaitan already pointed out that the actual article ran before the election. That it turns up on Slashdot after the election and then you start accusations against the NYT seems to tell us more about your accusations than them.
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What evidence..NYT was prepared..
How could anyone have that evidence outside of the NYT editor's office? That's impossible to know.
While I understand the need for vetting, this issue is months old - and it's not like there was a lot to research.
Undecideds, possibly yes. There were a lot of them out there - myself included.
And how could the timing not be suspicious?
Re:NYT Waits ..color me shocked (Score:5, Informative)
The saga with the WHO and China has been reported for months now. The NY times has reported on it many times [google.com]. Two of the links from the summary are from The National Review from months ago, so it isn't like it was a NY Times exclusive.
Sheesh, some people see conspiracies everywhere.
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Good grief you people are stupid. One the one hand it's "UN black helicopters! Eleventy!!111!!", on the other hand you complain when a sovereign nation does what it is allowed by UN charter to do: not cooperate.
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So WHO are the bad guys... doesn't that make it a good thing China is stiff-arming them?
Anyone who remembers the Cold War knows that keeping the world from spiraling into disaster means dealing with the bad guys. WHO's work depends on having access to countries like China where infections emerge and the regime is paranoid of bad news.
That takes diplomacy, ego stroking and sometimes outright flattery of some unsavory people. Even Trump knows that when it suits his purpose -- e.g. in North Korea.
Xi Jinping i
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Unless biological warfare is what they are covering up.
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Well, the people who actually understand the technology of genetically engineering a biological warfare agent are pretty certain that SARS-COV-2 is natural. If you come to the problem from the opposite end -- the strategy you'd use to use a biowarfare agent -- you end up at the same conclusion. You wouldn't deploy the weapon in your own country.
As for an accidental release, you have to assume China is stupid enough to conduct biowarfare development in the middle of a densely populated megacity. On top of
Re:NYT Waits ..color me shocked (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think the fear was that SARS-CoV-2 is engineered. It's that something else is being engineered, and they can't let that be known. The two events need not be directly related, but the need to cover up weapon research means stonewalling the WHO investigation until they can move it all to another facility.
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Actually, it's a lot more plausible that they have clandestine biowarfare programs than that SARS-COV-2 is a product of such a program; even aside from one thing being a prerequisite to another.
It doesn't really make sense for China to have an offensive biowarfare program; they're not North Korea. However that argument is not conclusive, because regimes like China's are dysfunctional. Because the leader's position is dependent upon the loyalty of government organs, they tend to develop loose-cannon power
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However, all the missteps of the Chinese government are exactly what Trump would have done had he had the power: ignore it, downplay it, assume it will go away, shutdown publicizing, etc.
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However, all the missteps of the Chinese government are exactly what Trump would have done had he had the power: ignore it, downplay it, assume it will go away, shutdown publicizing, etc.
True, with the only major difference. No lockdowns, 10 million dead Chinese and a third and fourth wave adding to the total.
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Now, now. The truth is not going to help anyone at this point...
Certainly not Trump, apparently he's severely allergic to it. :-)
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The idea that the virus came from a lab was discredited long ago and is extremely far fetched. It's not like China would cover it up either, they would find the persons responsible, parade them in front of the whole country for a show trial and then execute them.
100% bullshit... In no conceivable reality would China ever admit to a natural or synthetic virus leaked out of one of their state run labs. Then again, your signature makes it pretty obvious your are gullible to bullshit.
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They have admitted to far worse before, like sub-standard baby formula that poisoned infants.
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They have admitted to far worse before, like sub-standard baby formula that poisoned infants.
And not admitted to historical events for which there is video evidence. What is your point?
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Like what you arsewipe?
You cannot possibly be this oblivious. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Not like they haven't turned protesters into ground meat and washed the remains down the sewers...
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The more straightforward and believable explanation is that they heard a bunch of populist leaders trying to blame China for the pandemic and don't want to help them with their witch-hunt
That's the same answer. You have just admitted that you think the reason the NYT did not run this story until now is because of whom it might shine a favorable light on, not whether it was newsworthy.
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What kind of batshit conspiracy theory is this?
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Yes, he did. My wife had a better rebuttal... the article is dated 11/2, before the election.
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Yes, he did. My wife had a better rebuttal... the article is dated 11/2, before the election.
Fair enough, though a day before the election wasn't going to change anybody's mind.
Re:NYT Waits ..color me shocked (Score:4, Interesting)
"The idea that the virus came from a lab was discredited"
Not really. The idea the virus passed through a bat was credited... people then pretended that meant the idea the virus came out of a lab was debunked. With a little patience this is actually a great way to produce a biological weapon of this sort and have plausible deniability. It conveniently is SARS related as well, an incredibly deadly virus that mostly only really impacted China. This was based on DNA uploaded in Wuhan by the Chinese military... while in a state of escalating tension with the United States, tension they suddenly deescalated right around the time a paranoid person would think they were releasing the virus in the US and followed up with a fake and rapidly contained outbreak in China which is a great way to establish that they must be innocent because they got it too!
Is there evidence for this? Nope. But the evidence and motivations at play do fit this and it isn't as if China has a human rights record to suggest they would hesitate in the use of biological, chemical, or nuclear warfare.
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Is there evidence for this? Nope.
Then sorry, no you can't act on it and accuse China. If you believe that it's true, then you need to persuade your politicians to a) invest in the ability to gather evidence for next time and b) invest in the ability to cope without a big impact because, if that's true, next time the virus will be much more deadly. Blaming China without evidence is just a cop out.
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"Blaming China without evidence is just a cop out."
And preventing an investigation is what? Sorry no, you don't get to just clear them when they won't even allow the WHO to do their job.
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And preventing an investigation is what?
National sovereignty. Put yourself in their place. It's a risk to let a well known independent organization come into your country for the purpose of making declarations about you. In the current climate, it is a lose/lose situation as well: it will hurt China's goodwill if the investigation says something bad about China, but the WHO will be called sycophants and the result ignored if the investigation says something that makes China look good.
I imagine you would understand if a person refused to be interv
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"It's a risk to let a well known independent organization come into your country for the purpose of making declarations about you. "
Nice try. You make it sound like this is a one off. It's not the first time the WHO has done investigations, and virtually no nation has put up this kind of barrier before. The comparison to the police is false, in that the WHO has no enforcement authority. Your claim of "the way this is usually done..." needs some citation...I call BS.
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Your claim of "the way this is usually done..." needs some citation...I call BS.
I wasn't referring to the WHO, but to voluntary investigations in general.
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In the United States you are innocent until proven guilty either beyond a reasonable doubt or by preponderance of evidence. But you can't impede investigation, that is a crime called obstruction of justice. Attempting to flee or avoid investigation is considered a strong indication of guilt. In China you are guilty until proven innocent.
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In China you are guilty until proven innocent.
While China itself (meaning the government) is innocent despite being proven guilty. :')
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And preventing an investigation is what? Sorry no, you don't get to just clear them when they won't even allow the WHO to do their job.
Somewhat similar to leaving the WHO just after a pandemic spread?
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Not even close. When you're funding an organization and it starts playing favorites, it's time for some correction, and if that's not enough, it's time to get out.
This is the wrong way...
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/1... [nytimes.com]
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In our justice system you are innocent until proven guilty. But in China you are guilty until proven innocent. China hasn't proven their innocence.
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In our justice system you are innocent until proven guilty. But in China you are guilty until proven innocent. China hasn't proven their innocence.
I actually kind of like your argument here. Theoretically it's not actually true [telegraph.co.uk] but the standard of proof is clearly lower given a 99.9% conviction rate.
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I'm not sure "discredited" is the right word. There is reportedly no *hard* evidence for the theory that the virus came from a lab in Wuhan, but neither is there hard publicly available evidence that it didn't. The claims that it didn't appear to all be relying on this supposed lack of evidence; but in my mind, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
China doesn't trust WHO or anyone (Score:4, Insightful)
And the Chinese leaders are scumbags. But created in a lab? No. Being researched in said lab and accidentally getting out? Maybe, but according to my academic friends ... eh.
The Chinese government doesn't want any grief and correctly understands that, if they can keep the wheels on domestically, they don't have to care what who or WHO thinks. Are Europeans and Americans going to give up outsourced slave labor for on demand western retail profits? Nope. Do first world consumers want to pay more for the next twenty years as the low end global manufacturing supply chain is unwound? Ha.
Re:China doesn't trust WHO or anyone (Score:4, Insightful)
One would have assumed that the woke consumer base in the US and Europe would demand that we stop doing business with China. But apparently wokeness only extends to pronouns. I mean, fuck the Uighurs right?
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Well my "wokeness", such as it is, extends to not shopping at Walmart, because I still remember Walmart's "Buy American" ads running for a short time after they made their deals to buy their goods from China.
But the average consumer who doesn't know who the Uighurs are and happily buys from the least expensive source they find is not exactly "the woke consumer base".
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I think you just missed thereddaikon's point: 'woke' in 'the woke consumer base' is a restrictive modifier, that is, it selects a subset of the noun ('consumer base') it modifies. You apparently interpreted it as a non-restrictive modifier, that is one that further describes the noun it modifies. So his point is that whatever subset of the consumer base is 'woke' ought to be publicly demanding we stop doing business with China. But crickets.
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SARS escaped Chinese labs - twice.
For a pandemic example, you can look to 1977 when a Chinese lab research H1N1 accidently caused a release to humans [nationalpost.com], kicking off a pandemic.
If you want to stop picking on China, you can look at the 1972 accidental leak of smallpox from a UK lab - thankfully, it was caught quickly and only four people died.
Chinese labs accidentally releasing a virus is not unlikely - we have multiple cases where it has happened, including with SARS variants.
paywall bypass (Score:2)
https://www.bellinghamherald.com/news/nation-world/article246905712.html
Blocking the Who? (Score:5, Funny)
Mods versus Rockers? (Score:4, Funny)
Perhaps Led Zeppelin can provide air support.
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Wait a Minute (Score:4, Insightful)
I thought the whole reason everyone was upset with and contemptuous of the WHO a half year ago that they were completely in the Chinese government's pocket.
How do you square that with this?
Re:Wait a Minute (Score:4)
Not sure where your confusion here comes from. This article shows pretty clearly that the WHO is completely happy to be pushed around by China (among other nations) and not make a point of it publicly. (heaven forbid we tarnish the image of Saint Xi...)
If they complained about it, then okay, maybe you'd have a point. But that's not the case. They're clearly (intentionally or otherwise) just helping China to cover its own ass---certainly not the best outcome for the international community.
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No, thanks, I don't need any help reactively rationalizing conspiracy theories.
The WHO is useless (Score:1, Informative)
Re:The WHO is useless (Score:5, Insightful)
The WHO is a UN organisation. Taiwan is kept out of it because China has a permanent Security Council seat and throws its weight around to keep Taiwan from getting official UN recognition.
Good fucking grief why are you rightwingers always so fucking uninformed and stupid? This is news for nerds, fuck off to Stormfront, that's more your scene.
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+1
But lets face it, posting this article was bound to attract the dumbest of conspiracy theory junkies. This story is Qanon's wet dream come true.
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How does what you said in any way contradict what a*b said?
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The WHO is an agency of the UN. The UN is a political organization. Thus, the SHO is a political organization. If that derived nature isn't enough to get you to recognize what you're arguing, the WHO explicitly deals with inherently political questions of resource allocation and engages in policy advocacy. https://apps.who.int/gb/bd/pdf... [who.int]
And how exactly is your explanation for how C
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Oh, the delicious, delicious irony! A 'Doctor' with a degree in education is just as much a random dumb fuck as I am, when it comes to epidemiology. And when he is using that doctorate to inflate his medical credentials (he is a mere nurse by traini
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If they are controlled by China, why won't China let them "investigate" the origins of Coronavirus? They could use their control to publicize the story they wanted the world to hear, right? Your premise doesn't make sense.
Twitter (Score:4, Interesting)
Twitter banned ZeroHedge for imploring international health workers to go interview the head of Coronavirus research at the Wuhan BSV.
In January, before Trump shut down flights. When data was fresh and before politicians could construct coverups.
International wokesters mocked them for conspiracy thinking.
Bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
ZeroHedge was banned for publishing personal information about a lab worker. But that doesn't seem to fit your conspiracy. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/t... [cbsnews.com]
Capitalism demands you let a pandemic spread (Score:1)
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"there would have to be some kind of international reward if a country could contain a pandemic": there are of course a few countries that could legitimately collect such an award...such as Taiwan.
The WHO (Score:2)
I mean I knew Pete Townsend has varied interests but no idea he was into epidemiology.
Has US outsourced healthcare to China? (Score:2)
Is the US not capable of handling a virus outbreak? Does the CDC depend of China for everything - test kit, information?
It used to be that when a virus come up, CDC deals with it with no information from the origination country. This time, China uploaded the genetic sequence within a week or two. All information was published in Lancet, for crying out loud!
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Why this concern over where/how the virus originated?
Learning how it happened is the first step to preventing it from happening again.
Is the US not capable of handling a virus outbreak? Does the CDC depend of China for everything - test kit, information?
Clearly not. The US has done a far worse job of handling it.
It used to be that when a virus come up, CDC deals with it with no information from the origination country. This time, China uploaded the genetic sequence within a week or two. All information was published in Lancet, for crying out loud!
Trump neutered the CDC. He doesn't want facts, he wants to tout his own rhetoric.
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"Why this concern over where/how the virus originated?" That takes the prize for the dumbest question on \. As GigaplexNZ points out, you want to know so you can prevent it from happening again. Duh.
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Also, you probably don't read Lancet, arguably the TOP medical journal in the world, they had lots of artiucles on COVID: all the of genetic analysis, origin of the virus - down to the specie of bat, air borne transmission, etc. etc. You could look up their editorial where they explained how early all the in
Pot, meet kettle (Score:2)
The Trump administration has reacted furiously to China's failure to prevent the coronavirus from spreading.
And the rest of the world is furious with the Trump administration for their failure to prevent the virus from spreading.
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Curiouser and curiouser! (Score:2)
The denial of the Chinese government to allow anyone to investigate the actual origin of this certainly goes a long ways towards damning the Chinese government, now doesn't it?
Like I said previously: there's strategic advantages to starting a pandemic like this one, and if you do, you're prepared for the collateral damage it'll cause in your own territories, therefo
Re:Curiouser and curiouser! (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, it's possible, just as it's possible Trump is secretly fighting a war against satanist deep state cannibals. That doesn't mean it's likely.
Viruses jump from animals to humans all the time. It's estimated something like two million people a year get infected with viruses through natural contact with animals. Usually they don't spread far since those viruses aren't well adapted to spreading between humans, but with enough cases the exceptions are inevitable. Just in the last few decades we've had something like half a dozen major instances: SARS, MERS, Ebola, swine flu, COVID-19, etc.
So you can dream up wild conspiracies with no evidence to support them. Or you can say, "This is exactly what virologists have been warning us was likely to happen, so why should we be surprised that it did?"
I know, but the conspiracy just makes sense! The way conspiracy theories always do. China is being opaque about letting foreigners poke around and launch investigations into their doings, in the way that they're almost always opaque about things like that. Obviously they must be covering up a secret biological warfare program!
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It's called mortgages. The man is in real estate. You didn't think he paid cash up-front for all new acquisitions did you? Liquidating (selling) will typically not be an issue for him to pay back that debt if needed. No, the real important number is the earning to expenditure ratio. If he's positive, he's in a surplus and on path to paying down that debt. No problem.
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How do you lose money owning a CASINO?
You might want to read up on money laundering.
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You host a convention of physicists: https://qz.com/work/1249513/wa... [qz.com]
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My suspicion is that he has greatly inflated his losses on paper to keep from paying taxes (which is fraud), and has actually been more successful than his tax record shows (this explains why banks keep lending him money). But, like I said, I haven't seen the documents so it is impossible to know for sure.
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Nah, he'll just declare Yet Another Bankruptcy.
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In the 80s, 13% of companies declared bankruptcy according to debt.org. That number is down to about 3% today. Trump has owned about 500 businesses according to Wikipedia Of those, Snopes says he had about six, and about thirteen other business failures. That's actually a pretty fucking good record considering the BLS says that 20% of businesses fail within the first two years.
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Most businesses don't start out with millionaire bank accounts.
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You clearly don't understand how businesses start. The owner's funds aren't part of it.
Re:Thats weird. (Score:4, Informative)
Do you want to find the truth? Start poking around and watch when China screams.
Back when this was just getting started in December '19, some of the right wing web sites were joking around about Wuhan bioweapons, bat soup and the local meat market. China said nothing. Then someone posted that it came from pangolins. The Wuhan lab tweeted that people had better watch what they were saying, pinning this on pangolins.
China isn't an up-and-coming world power with rapidly opening markets, high technology and a strict but benevolent Communist government. It's a bunch of witch doctors. And even Xi won't be able to keep a lid on the resulting insurrection when they take the tiger penis away.
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