Rants and WTF are you talking about and Coronavirus!

[Pistons]

- Xi knew about the corona virus at least 6 days before the announcement. Those 6 days were essential for the virus to spread into an epidemic.

- The reason for the holdout was the CCP meeting in March, and any SARS like epidemic would be considered a safety threat to the regime itself. Thus they chose to try and hide it. The memo for the conversation meeting where this was discussed can be found online, if you search for it. Ironically the CCP meeting in March were never held due to covid 19.

- There are absolutely no way to find out if the virus was made by human scientists at the Wuhan lab, unless you do thorough testing at the Wuhan lab in question. If you think otherwise, then you are massively underestimating gene science as of 2019.

- Huawei was not at the center of the Cisco (other US companies were also involved IIRC) scandal, but two other original equipment manufacturers in China who made some of the parts for Huawei. So even if Huawei themselves has, or had all the good intentions possible, due to their size and global intentions, their very own chinese industrial component network in which they rely heavily upon, might have different intention. With CCP funded bonus checks in mind, and lower risk of potential losses. Just take a trip to Shenzhen yourself, and you will find large parts of this industrial network situated in shopping mall sweatshops with teenage workers, earning terrible wages, working like crazy 12 hours a day. And if they as much as look up if you say Hi or talk to them, the manager comes over and yells at them. As was seen by yours truly some 8 years ago. This is hard to compete against for anyone under western labor laws.

[Sirioja]

China's industrial and governmental espionage goes much further than mere Hua Wei and I am sorry, this false equivalence between Cisco and Hua Wei or what China does to what US does is generally not accepted by anyone in the West. Hua Wei is guilty of much more than espionage. It killed much of European tech industry in the telecommunications hardware segment. There used to be dozens of companies in Europe healthy and prosperous and providing good jobs in Europe and now you have just Nokia and Ericsson both very much weakened (Ericsson ADR stock price was $70 in 2000 and now under $9 while Nokia ADR was at $48 in 2000 and now under $4). Due to Hua Wei's price dumping actions supported by Chinese government unlimited interest free financing, Hua Wei has stolen a March on them, not to mention stealing industrial secrets. European nations are split, none can stand up against China on their own as they are not strong or big enough, and they have too many internecine squabbles to stand together, and China has exploited this rift to perfection. Not just in telecommunications but in so many walks of economy. The biggest danger is in automobile segment. Germany is hugely dependent on automobiles for its economy and if China is able to inflict the kind of damage in autos as it did in telecom, it will be terrible for German economy and we all know how important is Germany to Europe..

Killing European companies when Huawei or Samsung are not same quality than what was Nokia, when I had Nokia mobiles from 1995 to 2019 and I regret their quality. China and most of Asia are just for cheap, not for quality. If you drive Audi because I think best quality now after Porsche, out of Bugatti, Rolls, Bentley and Aston, then you will never buy Chinese or Korean car Kia or Hunday or SangYong, and I don't see in Japan when Nissan GTR is powered by legendary European Cosworth which powered beloved car for nearly 25 years of my life, legendary, my rodeo girl, RS500 . Western Europe have to protect better our safety, health and our own level of quality, nobody else, not even US, can compete with. I think Germany is understanding Europe is their main market when some others are falling, even before virus, and we have to learn from this crisis to become stronger.

On other point, US are now more than 100 000 deaths and larger than France Texas is falling for petrol, meat markets with many unemployment. French journalists there showed us images of people threatening others, not having mask and coughing on others face, crazy Trump is making many crazy dangerous like for weapons, when they are far worst country and not finished there for virus, when really slow now in Europe. Of course, nobody know about real Chinese figures, to try to protect their economy already falling before virus, but not our standard of quality, but only cheap, like tests which were not reliable, to protect our health. Just dangerous.

[Polyamorist]

China as capacity of country beat Japan, they are ranked second now in the world due to their quantity and Japan is guilty for that as we are one of the main nation who gave them technology.

However, it is not all black and white, Japan unlike most nations, we have so much actual cash cows, I won't name all companies, but whether it is sony, panasonic, toshiba, mitsubishi ufj bank, mitsui sumitomo bank or uniqlo or omron or cannon and so on lists are endless as I hope you least know, these are all Japanese companies and most of our companies are all in top 10 or top 5 in the world in all sectors of different industries, where as China only has few of that at the moment and mostly are still factories, as they are called the factories of world and hey usa trying to pull out, Japan is trying to pull out and hopefully rest of world including France who made this failed virus laboratory in wuhan China too. It is just quantity power of China, look at that nation look their insane size and hey look at Japan, it is tiny island nation who got to top fast because we are organized, honest, disciplined, good refined sophisticated culture (this also France and Italy too) and most importantly intelligent. But size did beat Japan, but like in most things in life it is matter of time, I hope for world. China is not safe due to their communist government, people are OK, but tend to cheat a lot, so let see if that culture change, they are opposite of how japanese people are, we are honest being who focus on quality that got us to top.

Salaam Ho-san.

My respect for China and Japan has nothing to do with economics or even public health, but rather the secrets that they hold. Civilizations this ancient must know things that Western countries never picked up.

Consider the great importance the Chinese have attached to filial piety. One ancient master compiled a book of 24 stories with examples of sons and daughters honoring their parents in extreme ways. https://www2.kenyon.edu/Depts/Religi...24-filial1.htm.

It is recounted that a Chinese man once visited Japan, and proudly showed his host this book, saying, "What can you show me that can compare to this exceptional devotion? In Japan do you have 24 cases of such filial piety?" The Japanese replied that they had no need of such a book in his culture. It would be like writing a book to say that a stone ought to fall when it is dropped. The extraordinary thing would be to find 24 cases of the absence of filial piety.

[McAdonis]

As for the virus investigation, if it was easy enough to trace it all the way back w / o any help from China, western scientists would have done that already. When every nation is saying that China is blocking an investigation, you can take it that China is indeed blocking a real investigation. I will let you put a benign spin on why they are doing it or that they don't really have much to hide even though they are the ones hiding whatever they are hiding.

China is most likely hiding that there was some sort of accident at the lab. I posted a link from Dot Gov website, not some liberal rag. This link from the Director of National Intelligence states that the scientific consensus believes the virus is not man made. There is consensus on climate change amongst the scientific community as well, yet some politicians continue to discredit climate change. This is a recurring theme. The tragedy is that science is partly what made the USA the most powerful nation on earth. Internet, space program, etc. Here is a opinion piece from American astrophysicist:

"If you're serious about making America great again -- and by "again," I mean greater than it's ever been, and greater than any country in the world is by any metric -- this is what it'll take. Science is how we became great in the first place. It's only by doing more and better science, and by listening to the robust scientific conclusions, whatever they may say, that we'll have the greatest version of America possible. But we have to be willing to invest, and we have to be willing to accept and listen to truths that may range from uncomfortable to disconcerting to outrageous. The choice is ours: invest in science and improve, or don't. We've borne the consequences of stagnation from under-investing for many decades now. If we're serious about making our country (and our world) as great as we possibly can, it's time to band together, to invest in our future, and -- if we really want to go the whole way -- to start thinking like scientists whenever we can."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2016/09/27/science-is-what-made-america-great

"Scientists Reach 100% Consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming": https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/ful...70467619886266.

[Pessimist]

Scientists can look at the RNA in the samples to determine if it is man made or not, they need not go to Wuhan to make this conclusion. I agree that China is in the wrong for blocking investigations of the Wuhan labs. It suggests a possible cover-up. Maybe scientists did not follow proper safety protocols and caught the virus from infected animals, resulting in an accidental spread to the general population.

Press statement from Director of National Intelligence website:

Good point about international reputation. The world does not differentiate Chinese companies from the CCP. The suspicion that the CCP's tentacles can reach deep into Chinese companies creates a certain level of distrust amongst free nations. This is why many EU nations were on the fence (or opposed a deal) with Huawei for their 5 G rollout. This was true even before CV-19. If it is found that CV-19 was used as a bioweapon intentionally, all trust is eroded to zero and the 5 G deal is scuttled completely. Even now that deal is in jeopardy, as is Huawei's future existence. The question is would the CCP sacrifice one of its tech giants for a Pyrrhic victory?.

China's industrial and governmental espionage goes much further than mere Hua Wei and I am sorry, this false equivalence between Cisco and Hua Wei or what China does to what US does is generally not accepted by anyone in the West. Hua Wei is guilty of much more than espionage. It killed much of European tech industry in the telecommunications hardware segment. There used to be dozens of companies in Europe healthy and prosperous and providing good jobs in Europe and now you have just Nokia and Ericsson both very much weakened (Ericsson ADR stock price was $70 in 2000 and now under $9 while Nokia ADR was at $48 in 2000 and now under $4). Due to Hua Wei's price dumping actions supported by Chinese government unlimited interest free financing, Hua Wei has stolen a March on them, not to mention stealing industrial secrets. European nations are split, none can stand up against China on their own as they are not strong or big enough, and they have too many internecine squabbles to stand together, and China has exploited this rift to perfection. Not just in telecommunications but in so many walks of economy. The biggest danger is in automobile segment. Germany is hugely dependent on automobiles for its economy and if China is able to inflict the kind of damage in autos as it did in telecom, it will be terrible for German economy and we all know how important is Germany to Europe.

In short, there are hundreds if not thousands of examples of what a rogue and insidious state Chinese regime has been. Support it if you will, but Corona is forcing many to finally confront the truth which they should have done a while ago.

As for the virus investigation, if it was easy enough to trace it all the way back w / o any help from China, western scientists would have done that already. When every nation is saying that China is blocking an investigation, you can take it that China is indeed blocking a real investigation. I will let you put a benign spin on why they are doing it or that they don't really have much to hide even though they are the ones hiding whatever they are hiding.

[McAdonis]

I am not aware that any overwhelming scientific consensus on this subject was already formed when the scientists did not have access to the region of origin and were unable to perform any study.

Scientists can look at the RNA in the samples to determine if it is man made or not, they need not go to Wuhan to make this conclusion. I agree that China is in the wrong for blocking investigations of the Wuhan labs. It suggests a possible cover-up. Maybe scientists did not follow proper safety protocols and caught the virus from infected animals, resulting in an accidental spread to the general population.

Press statement from Director of National Intelligence website:

"The Intelligence Community also concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified. he IC will continue to rigorously examine emerging information and intelligence to determine whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan."

https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/item/2112-intelligence-community-statement-on-origins-of-covid-19

Or conspiratorial China? Look, it doesn't matter "who is hurt more" if you did so much damage so as to smash your own economy. That's what we call a "Pyrrhic victory" (at too great a cost to be worthwhile to the victor). Now, I don't know what economic school of thought you come from, but I would suggest that going from a predicted 6. 1% GDP to 1. 8% GDP would be some pretty significant self-inflicted economic damage if they did it on purpose, and far from coming out "unscathed". Not to mention what such a stupid act would do to a country's international reputation. They already have a sketchy reputation for how they handle their internal affairs. To interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, including major trading partners, by intentionally releasing a deadly virus takes it all to another level. I'm no China fan, but I give them credit for being more intelligent than that.

Good point about international reputation. The world does not differentiate Chinese companies from the CCP. The suspicion that the CCP's tentacles can reach deep into Chinese companies creates a certain level of distrust amongst free nations. This is why many EU nations were on the fence (or opposed a deal) with Huawei for their 5 G rollout. This was true even before CV-19. If it is found that CV-19 was used as a bioweapon intentionally, all trust is eroded to zero and the 5 G deal is scuttled completely. Even now that deal is in jeopardy, as is Huawei's future existence. The question is would the CCP sacrifice one of its tech giants for a Pyrrhic victory? The irony, of course, it that is widely believed that US intel agencies used Cisco, a private company, as an arm to spy on it European allies: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-g...9BK07P20131221.

[Beijing4987]

Take a ride on the metro in Suzhou (population 6. 5 + million,2 million e scooters) or Shanghai. Hop on a fast train from Guangzhou (canton) to Beijing. My Suzhou supplier says that only the "grocery stores are busy making money. 60% of Alibaba (Tao Bao are knock-offs, poor quality" I bought a shop vac, French chocolate, japanese pill cutters, genuine corona and German beer that arrived one day later. Only the rural provinces and backwaters are a "developing country" Every country has an underground economy. The MS-13 gang members repatriated to their home countries are multinational now. Banksters launder their profits. Weapons bought by straw men and Eric Holder in the USA flow freely. The only no no for the Mossad is whacking a head of state. Not so for the CIA. Well, they make the "economy scream" in Chile and train the military at Fort Benning and bomb appropriate targets in Libya with help from Tony Blair. Trump will never run out of enemies or someone else to blame. The Chinese communist Party has a long term plan while POTUS is busy painting himself into a corner while his minions steal everything that isn't nailed down. Wet markets with wild animals are all over Asia.

[Pessimist]

The shred of political legitimacy that the CCP has, the reason it has the modern "mandate of heaven" is because it is supposed to ensure prosperity and a rising standard of living. I would say this pandemic and the economic damage to China's largest trading partners is something that neither Xi nor the CCP would like to go through or are enjoying, far from it. Yes Xi has becoming increasingly authoritarian and bold, but that was in the face of relative economic success during the last decade, now this has been set back enormously..

I am not at all in disagreement that China's economic data is generally untrustworthy and anyone who is a market participant has known that much and learned how to triangulate data to get some sense of reality over the years. Trillions of dollars are invested in markets and those are not based on wild guesswork. There is a broad consensus that China is hurt much less by covid, the Bloomberg #s I presented below is the consensus of all economists which are surveyed by Bloomberg and that includes all the large banks such as Goldman and MS to independent ones like ISI and so on. Western companies that sell in China also tell us how things are coming back to life in China vs in the west. You can dispute the relative health all you want but there is no dispute among economists as of now. As for whether it is a conspiracy theory, wildly off conspiracy theory -- those are just adjectives. I already said very clearly I put the probability at a low amount but also that you can't prove the probability is zero.

As for Xi -- he would not be first one to have made a stupid decision, would he? Wag the dog theory applies to even China, not just US or West. Whipping up nationalism when one's political back is to the wall is a time honored tradition. Will it backfire on him, was it a stupid decision if he indeed made such a decision? Only time will tell, but even if it hurts him or helps him, that is with the help of hindsight. The question is, was there any motivation and did he have the means to take that decision and act on it? In my view, yes. Whether he actually did, we will never know.

[Delta Indigo]

Or conspiratorial China? Look, it doesn't matter "who is hurt more" if you did so much damage so as to smash your own economy. That's what we call a "Pyrrhic victory" (at too great a cost to be worthwhile to the victor). Now, I don't know what economic school of thought you come from, but I would suggest that going from a predicted 6. 1% GDP to 1. 8% GDP would be some pretty significant self-inflicted economic damage if they did it on purpose, and far from coming out "unscathed". Not to mention what such a stupid act would do to a country's international reputation. They already have a sketchy reputation for how they handle their internal affairs. To interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, including major trading partners, by intentionally releasing a deadly virus takes it all to another level. I'm no China fan, but I give them more credit for being more intelligent than that. Again, it's just another silly conspiracy theory. The world will be better off if we get on with this and start working together to try to solve the problem versus finger pointing and tossing around unfounded charges and conspiracy theories, like it was the USA army that unleashed the virus upon China. Come on people! And by the way, I was one of the few to stand up strong against Gino's posts.

I also think the whole theory is quite ludicrous, but I am trying to refute the theory in a civilized tone. I was a student of Economics and without saying much more so that I don't reveal who I am, some close relatives of mine are Economics Professors, one of whom studies the Chinese economy quite closely.

The Chinese growth statistics are always a bit exaggerated and pumped up, some people say by a little, others say by a lot, I once had read in the Economist that 8% growth statistics in China point to a stagnant economy, this was in 2008 and now the baseline has shifted, more like 4% probably represents no real growth. There is a lot of controversy about figures in a society that is not at all transparent, but something similar is said about Chinese debt, Gordon Chang's writings discuss this in great detail, he said Chinese government debt is not really 50% of GDP but more like 200% when the debts of state owned enterprises are factored in. Not everyone agrees with him, but I can give you a source on this one, https://nationalinterest.org/feature...-debacle-68417 But anyhow it is quite clear to me that when the Chinese government reports figures of below 2% growth the actual situation is far worse. I concede to Pessimist that the West's growth figures are worse, but this is what you would expect from a middle income emerging market anyhow. Those countries grow faster and recover faster, sometimes (basket cases like Argentina) they fall even further but that is not common. But what has happened to China, even though it is arguably not as painful as what the US is enduring, is in no uncertain terms very politically painful for the CCP.

The shred of political legitimacy that the CCP has, the reason it has the modern "mandate of heaven" is because it is supposed to ensure prosperity and a rising standard of living. I would say this pandemic and the economic damage to China's largest trading partners is something that neither Xi nor the CCP would like to go through or are enjoying, far from it. Yes Xi has becoming increasingly authoritarian and bold, but that was in the face of relative economic success during the last decade, now this has been set back enormously.

About the virus being man made, I will let others read these sources, https://www.livescience.com/coronavi...de-in-lab.html and https://www.bettergov.org/news/fact-...-not-man-made/.

I am not a molecular biologist, but that is the basis of my assertion that a scientific consensus seems to exist that the virus is natural. What we do know and is well known and not a dark secret that due to various epidemics, by the ways bats are responsible for many corona viruses, that Chinese doctors and scientists were harvesting natural viruses and studying them in a lab to better understand them. They might have made a mistake, but I would strongly doubt that they deliberately released it.

We do live in an age, when people literally will believe anything, conspiracy theories are very popular in general, please note that I am not talking about this one in particular and I am not aiming this comment at any one person. A careful and nuanced understanding of the underlying socio-economic, political and scientific facts actually explains and reveals a lot.

Please understand that I am not aiming this as an attack on anyone in particular, I think Pessimistic has been very cordial and civilized in this discussion. However I am honestly articulating what I think of conspiracy theories in general, often the arguments behind them are poorly backed up. If is of course far costlier to explain complex things in detail.

One last point, proving the counter factual is impossible. So if someone says something like prove God does not exist, that is not possible and does not prove God does exist. Same with this issue, prove it didn't happen is a logically and philosophically inane line of argument.

[Pessimist]

Or conspiratorial China? Look, it doesn't matter "who is hurt more" if you did so much damage so as to smash your own economy. That's what we call a "Pyrrhic victory" (at too great a cost to be worthwhile to the victor). Now, I don't know what economic school of thought you come from, but I would suggest that going from a predicted 6. 1% GDP to 1. 8% GDP would be some pretty significant self-inflicted economic damage if they did it on purpose, and far from coming out "unscathed". Not to mention what such a stupid act would do to a country's international reputation. They already have a sketchy reputation for how they handle their internal affairs. To interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, including major trading partners, by intentionally releasing a deadly virus takes it all to another level. I'm no China fan, but I give them more credit for being more intelligent than that. Again, it's just another silly conspiracy theory. The world will be better off if we get on with this and start working together to try to solve the problem versus finger pointing and tossing around unfounded charges and conspiracy theories, like it was the USA army that unleashed the virus upon China. Come on people! And by the way, I was one of the few to stand up strong against Gino's posts.

Well, I appreciate that you stood up against Gino but his fire was directed at me from start to finish (he has been pretty silent, hasn't he been; hmm hope he is doing OK). I even have been skipping GT for a while now, although it very much helps that I no longer like this club in making my "principled decision" hehe.

Anyway, I come from the school that says China has a rogue regime which is impeding an investigation that is in the interest of all nations given the amount of global damage that got inflicted on everyone, whether it is number of lives lost or the economic damage inflicted. And yes, US lost in many ways big time but it may be that the biggest price to be paid in the end would be coming from the unfortunate nations in LatAM (Brazil is getting decimated as we speak, it is a pure heart break nation at the moment), India and Africa and Pakistan and Bangladesh, and so on.

"what such a stupid act would do to a country's international reputation" -- well, I can submit to you that China's international reputation was far from being sterling and is much worse now than it has ever been. So, if "The world will be better off if we get on with this and start working together to try to solve the problem", a huge part of the working together begins with understanding the origin of the virus and its nature and this very much constitutes what an epidemiologist does except in this instance they can't and no prizes for guessing why such an investigation is not happening.

[Sirioja]

France forbid chloroquine, more dangerous and killer than efficient to cure from virus, no competition with Trump. Western Europe don't even tell about japanese avigan, for efficiency versus virus.

[Pessimist]

What do you mean by the US government, Trump and his inner circle? Is that the view of NIH or Fauci, the medical arm of the US government? It has become bizarre with Trump, on the one hand it is his Federal guidelines about distancing and the lock down that he pushes various political allies to protest against. A lot of the time there isn't a coherent view, there is the official view and polite policy on the one hand and Mr T and some prominent allies on the other hand.

So if it just Mr. T and Pompeo, I still wouldn't consider if the "official" view of the US government. Also Mr. T does contradict himself a lot and say one thing one day and the total opposite the next day. He is obviously getting stressed about the prospects of his re election and lashing out at various other parties for blame. Look I am not a doctor or molecular biologist, but I thought the overwhelming consensus is that this is not man made and is totally consistent with natural evolution, there will always be some voices that dissent of course.

Yes, that is how it works. Fauci can be fired by Trump and replaced with someone else by Trump. Fauci cannot fire Trump and Fauci cannot replace Trump with someone else. Until Jan 20,2021, Trump's views represent the US government views, like it or not. I acknowledge Trump changes his views, but until he does, the latest articulation by Pompeo can be taken as representing the views of POTUS.

Look, I am not taking a personal view on the origin of Corona. I am just saying that US government of which this POTUS speaks with an absolute authority at the current time, has taken a stance. There is not enough info to incontrovertibly refute his stance because any independent investigation has not been allowed. While Trump speaks with a language that can make you wince, other nations have been very unhappy as well. To wit Australia; and relationship between Aussies and China is at all time low, because Australia was bold enough to ask for answers and China does not like nations in its neighborhood who question the mighty China.

I am not aware that any overwhelming scientific consensus on this subject was already formed when the scientists did not have access to the region of origin and were unable to perform any study.

As you say, we can agree to disagree. And I reiterate this is not even my theory nor that I fully subscribe to it. I don't even deny that the probability of this theory being accurate is not too high. But I would not assign a probability of zero, not until it can be proven wrong convincingly; there is no question that on the economy side, the virus has hurt US and EU and even JP considerably worse than it has hurt China, based on the numbers I already printed below.

Motive is a powerful indicator when investigators examine a crime, and the narrowing of economic gap coupled with pressure at home that Xi Jinping has been facing due to trade fallout and slowing economy presents one powerful motive in my view, even if the risk seems extraordinarily foolish.

[The Cane]

Yes, we are all aware that world commerce is interlinked, not exactly breaking news. The question is who is hurt more, and if the relative pain is less, is it plausible that a desperate, rogue regime act irresponsibly and take such a horrible step -- the very nature of it being such that even the people living in countries which are being targeted by such action would exclaim "No, they could not do such a thing, could they? No, I don't believe they did. I mean, they could and't, nobody would".

Or conspiratorial China? Look, it doesn't matter "who is hurt more" if you did so much damage so as to smash your own economy. That's what we call a "Pyrrhic victory" (at too great a cost to be worthwhile to the victor). Now, I don't know what economic school of thought you come from, but I would suggest that going from a predicted 6. 1% GDP to 1. 8% GDP would be some pretty significant self-inflicted economic damage if they did it on purpose, and far from coming out "unscathed". Not to mention what such a stupid act would do to a country's international reputation. They already have a sketchy reputation for how they handle their internal affairs. To interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, including major trading partners, by intentionally releasing a deadly virus takes it all to another level. I'm no China fan, but I give them credit for being more intelligent than that. Again, it's just another silly conspiracy theory. The world will be better off if we get on with this and start working together to try to solve the problem versus finger pointing and tossing around unfounded charges and conspiracy theories, like it was the USA army that unleashed the virus upon China. Come on people! And by the way, I was one of the few to stand up strong against Gino's posts.

[Delta Indigo]

Well, I did not say Pompeo was not a ass kissing sycophant; one has to be, to gain Trump's full confidence.

I said the following: "Pompeo is probably the closest confidant of Trump in his cabinet and Trump fully subscribes to Pompeo views and feels the same way". I did not say Pompeo is an independent source of information -- he does reflect and channel Trump's views but the reason his statements matter more is because he has Trump's confidence (as opposed to say, Tillerson did or Fauci now -- so, when Tillerson or Fauci say something, you can dismiss them as not reflecting the views of POTUS, but when Pompeo says something, he does speak for Trump).

That is the key point I was making -- that the view that the virus is man made and came out of a Wuhan Lab is effectively the view of US government at the moment. We can all disagree but it IS the US government view for now. So, there remains only the second question in their view, which they have not yet articulated but might do so in the future "did Chinese government intentionally leak it?

What do you mean by the US government, Trump and his inner circle? Is that the view of NIH or Fauci, the medical arm of the US government? It has become bizarre with Trump, on the one hand it is his Federal guidelines about distancing and the lock down that he pushes various political allies to protest against. A lot of the time there isn't a coherent view, there is the official view and polite policy on the one hand and Mr T and some prominent allies on the other hand.

So if it just Mr. T and Pompeo, I still wouldn't consider if the "official" view of the US government. Also Mr. T does contradict himself a lot and say one thing one day and the total opposite the next day. He is obviously getting stressed about the prospects of his re election and lashing out at various other parties for blame. Look I am not a doctor or molecular biologist, but I thought the overwhelming consensus is that this is not man made and is totally consistent with natural evolution, there will always be some voices that dissent of course.

[Pessimist]

I do differ with you on one point, Pompeo is a total ass kissing sycophant who will say anything to please Mr T not an independent source of information.

Well, I did not say Pompeo was not a ass kissing sycophant; one has to be, to gain Trump's full confidence.

I said the following: "Pompeo is probably the closest confidant of Trump in his cabinet and Trump fully subscribes to Pompeo views and feels the same way". I did not say Pompeo is an independent source of information -- he does reflect and channel Trump's views but the reason his statements matter more is because he has Trump's confidence (as opposed to say, Tillerson did or Fauci now -- so, when Tillerson or Fauci say something, you can dismiss them as not reflecting the views of POTUS, but when Pompeo says something, he does speak for Trump).

That is the key point I was making -- that the view that the virus is man made and came out of a Wuhan Lab is effectively the view of US government at the moment. We can all disagree but it IS the US government view for now. So, there remains only the second question in their view, which they have not yet articulated but might do so in the future "did Chinese government intentionally leak it?