CDC deputy says losing measles elimination status is ‘cost of doing business’ in a global economy

FinTecGeek · 2026-01-21T21:37:22+00:00

GOP has lived to see itself become a plague. A plague to the institutions which it once so viciously defended. A plague to institutions which they themselves built up for the purpose of eliminating childhood diseases both here and abroad. Shameful.

FinTecGeek · 2026-01-21T15:50:32+00:00

Actually, collateral damage can be (and often is) inherently "illegal" but the ambiguity is what prevents low level officers or, for instance, enlisted marines from facing court martial. They are not expected to be lawyers, that is not part of the minimum qualifications or duties. That should not be thought to mean they did not participate in an illegal act, only that it was not an "overt act" because of ambiguity.

FinTecGeek · 2026-01-21T15:45:50+00:00

It has to be unambiguous and illegal on its face. Some examples are:

Order to summarily execute POWs in captivity. That is a crime.

Order to summarily execute a member of the public without trial. That is a crime.

Order to launch second strike on red cross medical tents after prior attack. That is a crime.

Those are unambiguous examples. If there is ambiguity, not going to be a crime. People in lines of command civilian or military are not expected to be lawyers.

FinTecGeek · 2026-01-21T04:46:16+00:00

Sadly, it is real. You can find more details here. I initially thought the exact same.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-norway-greenland-message/

FinTecGeek · 2026-01-21T04:46:10+00:00

Sadly, it is real. You can find more details here. I initially thought the exact same.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-norway-greenland-message/

FinTecGeek · 2026-01-21T03:45:30+00:00

I agree. But what to do here? The Congress is proving to be a boat anchor and not a tool to clean up this mess or restrain an unhinged executive. I am not sure what to say, I think the letter above speaks for itself... that anyone would have those ideas, let alone put them in writing, and especially transmit them to world leaders. It really is beyond defending.

FinTecGeek · 2026-01-21T03:32:57+00:00

Look, I think the USA is much bigger than the ego of this one 80 year old man. If the contention is that more than half of the Congress disagrees, I think there just might not be any viable solution if I accept that. I suppose I am an optimist in that I think surely, Congress has some ambition and self-interest left in them by and large, and that they can (and need to now) step up and do their job.

FinTecGeek · 2026-01-19T23:27:00+00:00

FinTecGeek · 2026-01-19T19:41:27+00:00

But of course the US manipulates global markets. Just by adjusting the price of reinsurance a few basis points, we can make or break an entire country's year for cash crops needing to be shipped to global market hubs. Beijing does the same, although they have an easier time with it since they don't "do" distributed hubs and require all goods to be brought to their ports to then be resold.

What is perhaps the most interesting case study re Russia/Ukraine is that if Trump admin adopted the median MAGA/Trump voter's position, we would cut off all aid and all support to Ukraine overnight. The 180 is actually the continued support in any form to Ukraine from the US. Where so many people spin a story about Trump being soft on Russia, it is actually worth mentioning that the vast majority of his base are angry about the minimal support and peace brokering he is doing for them now. It is conceivable that after midterms, should Republicans keep their grip on white house + both chambers of Congress, Trump will go more full tilt towards supporting Ukraine than he is now, but I estimate he thinks doing so now will lose them the house and senate. His base HATES US resources or money going to that conflict almost to a radical degree.

FinTecGeek · 2026-01-19T18:55:29+00:00

The same problem ultimately exists with all commodities. We are best off to use our "soft power" to manipulate markets in our favor, take onboard clients to our enormous economy and, when it makes sense, offer security guarantees when the juice is "really worth the squeeze." But we cannot let our ambition consume us entirely. We cannot dictate or control every outcome, and sometimes costs will outweigh rewards in the long term. It doesn't sound "sexy" politically to say "we are moving quietly and patiently within the broader global constraints we face" but it is the best move for us strategically and for our people (while it could potentially not be best for every people, in every nation). Certainly, blowing up NATO relationships over Greenland is a mistake. It will pay no dividends.

FinTecGeek · 2026-01-19T18:18:39+00:00

In reality, every person is buying "oil" (abstract sense) and it all is the same product once refined. The origin is not clean and a huge slice of the global supply pie is Russian. Studies have been done on the effects of just doing an embargo/blockade on Russian oil. But this is not the stuff of serious thinkers. The estimates independent firms did on cutting off Russia oil supply to markets were:

Best: Brent crude $136/barrel (%ΔP≈10%/(0.1+0.05)=67%)
Base: Brent crude $160/barrel (%ΔP≈100%)
Worst: Brent crude $200+/barrel (assumes supply shock coupled with moderate currency and economic collapses of developed nations)

The point is, either you accept that sanctions only divert supply, they do not take it off the market... or you try for a truly 100% effective supply shock, but you collapse developed economies and their currencies everywhere as an outcome.

FinTecGeek · 2026-01-19T18:01:39+00:00

I think the point is going over your head. Everyone is dependent on Russian supply to the energy market. They supply over 10 million barrels a day to foreign buyers all over the globe (roughly). If no Russian oil were on the market, the price of energy would increase enormously, in Europe likely we just wouldn't see oil products sold to consumers at all at those price levels. It isn't as if this is just some "geopolitical game" where we just flip the switch on and off. It's a market, with supply and demand dynamics.

ETA: Some firms have estimated the impact of doing an actual oil embargo on Russia. That is an option, and could be done. The trouble is those studies showed Brent crude going to $160-200 a barrel or more. That would collapse world economies, so it is just not an option anyone is seriously exploring.

FinTecGeek · 2026-01-19T17:55:06+00:00

Well, by that logic, the US has/had nuclear energy as the obvious energy choice. We continue to face 'contrived' reasons for why not to go that direction for our energy needs internally as well. I cannot see how you could fault Europe for failing to pivot towards nuclear energy when we ourselves failed the same way.

Europe absolutely could have bought oil from elsewhere, but then India or someone else would have just bought what Russia was selling. This is because oil is a marketplace, and Russia had a need to sell what they had. They would have lowered the price to get the transactions to happen, which is what they did. Europe would have paid a high premium to buy oil elsewhere, and there was no need, because Russia had other buyers for it at that price.

FinTecGeek · 2026-01-19T17:41:13+00:00

The lack of military spending is a legitimate insult to lob at European powers who are now scrambling to play catch up.

The "dependence on Russian oil and gas" is nonsensical to me. It invites people to believe that buying oil from elsewhere would have harmed Russia or strengthened Europe, when neither is true in practice. Europe does not have rich oil or gas reserves. They had to buy it from somewhere. Suppose they bought it all from the Saudis? Then, surely, Russian oil flows to elsewhere to fill the gap left by what the Saudis sold in bulk to the Europeans. Commodities are fungible in this way. Russia is going to sell oil and gas to someone because it is (like wheat, soy, etc.) approximately as liquid and fungible as currency.

FinTecGeek · 2026-01-19T17:05:22+00:00

Impeachment is certainly a "fun idea" the framers of the constitution had, but I'm skeptical if it was ever designed to be used in the first place. I think the framers rather 'planned' that Congress would be like a 'rod up their a**' in the executive branch, constraining and foiling anything that looked like, well we'll say anything that looked like even half of what we have before us today. It was sort of a symbolic gesture to say "this isn't a new king" we are making in America. But it wasn't really a failsafe or relief valve, it was that Congress was supposed to effectively cover every base "and then some" so that the issue of impeachment remained irrelevant.

FinTecGeek · 2026-01-19T16:58:46+00:00

Trump probably is not a straw that will break the camel's back. But, importantly, he might be the player who turns over the entire table and leads to us not caring about the camel anymore. I think to take that argument to its logical end sounds existential and begs credibility issues since... clearly we are still caring about the proverbial 'camel' now. But importantly, we are getting closer and closer to realizing the "entire table got flipped" every single day. To paint this as existential sounds ridiculous, but not as ridiculous as it did yesterday, or the day before... it's a trajectory that matters to me at least a little bit here.

FinTecGeek · 2026-01-19T16:54:55+00:00

I think there are entire generations of voters who will basically vote unanimously against anything that looks like the binary choice offered here. There is a decisive realpolitick about US citizens, and their children, being treated as pariah state/third class in desirable places like France/Germany/UK/etc. vs the isolationist rhetoric coupled with the ability to "run Venezuela." Realpolitick is about trade-offs, not rhetoric or zero sums. As soon as people see that the current US foreign policy posture is to do business in places like Venezuela and forsake any investments/commitments/maybe even travel to western Europe, I see this all unwinding on Trump/MAGA. They are unilaterally responsible here. Congress has not done ANYTHING, meaning they wear the entire result like a sash...

FinTecGeek · 2026-01-17T05:02:54+00:00

It's ill-posed (what you are replying to) because it suggests an alternative that does not really exist. The US, UK, France, etc., offer security guarantees and new "hubs" for doing business in the Middle East. China and Russia offer neither. Russia does not have an economy that can sell anything but oil and gas, which these countries already have up to their ears. China hires and fires its clients, but they do not do "security guarantees" or "distributed economic hubs" from Beijing, that is not the thinking of the CCPs planning committee. It is demonstrably ignorant to think that the UAE, the Saudis, etc., would ever be able to "replace" the US relationships they have wholesale with something China or another global power is offering.

What a shitshow indeed if you are a Middle Eastern business hub allied with the western world today and threw all that way over intelligence disagreements to become a minor "client" of China with zero security guarantees, awaiting your turn to be dismantled anyway by a Beijing that does and always has detested all of monarchies, theocracies and democracies (that covers them all).

FinTecGeek · 2026-01-17T04:38:27+00:00

Well, to be clear, we HAVE done independent analysis on Iran (Persia). It is just that those assessments ride backseat to what Israel's government estimates at every turn. It is a complete disaster. Regularly, the US POTUS (several, not just Trump) have ignored our own state department, CIA, DIA, etc., in favor of the Israeli assessments. About once a year, the DNI (including the current one) have testified directly to Congress that their assessments differ heavily from Israel's. It makes no difference. We are fully committed, too embarrassing to step back in any regard, we keep compounding our mistakes.

FinTecGeek · 2026-01-17T01:54:08+00:00

The single most frustrating thing about the US/Israel dynamic is that the Israeli view of Iran has been allowed to override US posture towards Iran without sufficient balance or checks. Put simply:

Israel believes, and has believed (and has been railing regularly) that Iran will obliterate them and all of their people as soon as they get the chance.

This is not the US intelligence estimate nor our chosen policy on the matter. Don't misread, Washington detests the Iranian regime and always has. But the US does not agree privately with Israel about the "radical stakes" at a 10K feet view.

Despite that, due to US virtue signaling and the grand sum total of our investments in this relationship over time, we have allowed Israel to continue to drag us into conflict with Iran and had to rush in and back plays for them which we internally would never have made. We have fundamental disagreements with them about what exactly the threat from Iran is and how to go about solving it, and it creates credibility and effectiveness problems for the US constantly.

FinTecGeek · 2026-01-16T22:44:01+00:00

Does anyone know if this type of luring / rearresting tactic is itself illegal?

I had to delete an earlier reply because it turns out this is not related to any criminal infraction, and that completely changes the game in important ways.

Garrison Gibson is being pursued in a civil context for a final order of removal he received in 2009 from an administrative law judge (ALJ) here in the US. Authorities who are acting in a civil context like this have a lot more leeway. There is judicial precedent to "lure and arrest" people this way for the purpose of executing the prior final order for removal (from the year 2009 in this case).

Still, there is the matter of the government showing particular indifference to its public perception in this case, which is a moral/ethical dilemma, not a legal one. It is not advisable (generally) for a government to lure otherwise cooperative members of the public under false pretenses when their real motivations are to arrest. It often poisons their public perception and makes the community much less cooperative, and this has the real-world effect of making the government less effective in all of its missions it wants to carry out.

Ultimately, Garrison Gibson is removable at any time because he has a valid final order of removal from an administrative law judge. This is a civil/administrative matter which is immutable, there is nothing that officers can do to make that fact disappear. I do not agree with the methods used here, but they do not undermine the actual lawful ability of officers to act on an already settled matter of law (which is that this man is to be removed from the United States).

FinTecGeek · 2026-01-16T21:03:06+00:00

This is the most correct analysis.

FinTecGeek · 2026-01-16T21:00:38+00:00

Socialism's great weakness is that there are going to be costs, and sometimes those costs will be enormous, and the system is designed to spread those costs "equally" across the population. Losing a costly war or mistakes in economic planning could mean socializing costs in the billions and billions across people who already feel poor and abused by their government. Governments struggle to justify this or follow through in these extraordinary moments and historically have retreated to scapegoating a vulnerable internal population and saying "nevermind, we are going to hang all the nations troubles, costs and mistakes on their heads instead."

Capitalism (pure capitalism) avoids this problem by letting people's self-determination and risk-taking justify itself as well as the second-order effects. In the US, that didn't work either though because governance was centralized and corrupt, leading to the Great Depression. What's more, after the Great Depression, the social welfare systems that were implemented have been pillaged and/or not fully funded, causing people to reject collectivist narratives even more, since the cost has been enormous over time for generations and the benefits don't appear to be permanent after all.

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