20210324
Introduction:
Fernando Pessoa was the greatest writer in the Portugese language (he also published in English and French). He wrote under at least 75 names (including three female names) that he called heteronyms, because each character held views independent of him. He wrote on a wide variety of topics from travel to philosophy, and was an accomplished poet. Alberto Caeiro was known as “master of the heteronyms''. While he was not the first, what distinguishes him to me is his commitment to reality. That brings me to the title of this blog, which I hope to return to from time to time to delve into the reality of things.
Vaccines (Wars, Nationalism, Efficacy, Cost, Production, Distribution):
A full scale conflict is raging around the world over vaccinations. It is being fought by the great powers: USA, EU, UK, China, India, Russia. If you want to understand the true nature of the World Order, watch this space; this is going to get ugly. The often repeated and now generally accepted narrative is that the only way out of this pandemic is to get a vaccine, this is followed up by “none of us is safe until all of us are safe,” which means vaccinated. The conclusion being that we have to get a vaccine and then vaccinate everybody. This cannot happen. Even if there was no objection to vaccination, the logistics of this remains beyond human capacity. The difficulty in producing vaccines and the requirements for distribution and storage (negative 70 degrees for some) mean that even some moderately wealthy nations will be unable to vaccinate enough of their population to achieve control of transmission for many years to come. By then I expect we will have even bigger problems.
Take the case of Pascal Soriot, the French born CEO of British-Swedish pharmaceutical company Astrazeneca. You may know that they currently produce a vaccine developed by an Oxford University team led by Sarah Gilbert. This vaccine is being made available at cost until the pandemic is under control. I admit that I was surprised to discover that despite his nationality and position, Mr. Soriot grew up poor near Paris, and after rising through the power of his intellect, spent many years travelling the world working in various places before coming to Astrazeneca relatively late in life. The deal with Oxford was done over the phone one Saturday afternoon, while the CEO was at his grandson's birthday party.
Using a tried-and-true technology as old as vaccination itself with manufacturing capacity all over the world (notably in India, home to some of the largest vaccine factories), and only needing a temperature that can be maintained in a cooler along with a six pack of beer. It is a godsend if we are to believe that vaccination is our only salvation and that none of us are safe until all of us are vaccinated. Despite this, one of the few unifying forces in our fractured and divided world is the Astrazeneca vaccine and the passionate opposition to it from China, the EU, and the USA. The UK, who claims patrimony, and India the master of reproduction stand by it. A tried and true technology, inexpensive and relatively easy to produce, should be the cornerstone of vaccination if as is said, vaccination is our only way out, and no one is safe until everyone is vaccinated.
The mutants are among us. They are strange, as they aren’t random. The virus is evolving specifically to defeat vaccines. Listen to this clip from the BBC program Real Story. From 11:00 to 17:15.
Reality is not hopeless. People in ordinary to good health will survive COVID. They’ll survive with varying degrees of severity, but they’ll generally be okay. The consequences of the reactions to COVID will prove a much tougher challenge to meet.
Hedging Again; Archegos Capital:
Archegos Capital is a Family Office. These are basically investment vehicles that manage the wealth of a family, removing it from the hands of the siblings and entrusting it to professional managers whose job it is to ensure that they are never poor again. They have become more frequent relatively recently, and are now part of the modern capitalist infrastructure which is designed to be riskless for the rich. Somehow, Archegos Capital, which is controlled by one man, William Hwang, was able to leverage their capital many times over. This went unnoticed by regulators, as legal means were used to disguise transactions. Virtually every large bank lent Archegos money, and when the prices of the companies that Archegos invested in started to fall, the banks panicked and sold more, eventually losing some 20 billion dollars between them. Mr. Hwang, whose personal fortune was about $7 billion, may have suffered significant reversals, though it is unlikely that he will become poor. We are assured that this is just a blip, and that things will soon be back to normal. Much like the football club Chairman giving the failing manager his full support, I fear what will come next. Blip or not, this trend is going to continue in world finance, and sooner rather than later there will be another catastrophe. Some will call for more regulation. I would say it is not possible to regulate something no one understands. I would say that banks and the various financial players have to be restricted vertically and horizontally so that no one or two or three pose systemic risk, then the market has to be allowed to function and to punish mistakes ruthlessly, so encouraging some amount of prudence which may lead to a degree of stability and real investment in ventures which may actually impact the lives of people.
2045:
We have been assured that the climate emergency is the greatest threat facing the planet at the moment. Man is primarily responsible for this and man can solve this, but we must act now. Nations have come together to stop climate change and save the planet for humans and all living things, which of course, depend on us for their survival. There is a great movement to achieve net zero in carbon emissions by 2050. I am not going to attempt to explain what net zero carbon emissions is, as I do not understand it, nor do I understand how this will slow, halt or reverse climate change. I fear the earth was around billions of years before humanity and will outlast us by billions more years. Climate change is real, and it is a problem for us and life as we know it, but I fear that net zero carbon is not the answer, and we will still be left with this problem. The bright side is that this will be the least of our concerns. The year we should all be fixated on is 2045. The first mass study of male sperm count was carried out during the first World War when the USA took the sperm count of recruits (roughly our great-grandfathers). The sperm count among men in the western world is less than half of their great grandfathers. This count has halved since 1973 by which time it was already in decline. On this trajectory, male sperm count in the western world will be zero by 2045, with the rest of the world being maybe a decade behind. I actually have no trouble understanding this or its implications for humanity. The reasons for this decline are well understood. The solution, if one is sought, will no doubt ignore the generic problem and focus on the use of technology to improve the imperfect beast of man.
Farewell:
Dr. Jephthah Ford; Jephthah, in casual conversation, would mention things which someone less worldly than I would find alarming. He operated from a clinic off Red Hills Road (Kingston, Jamaica), where he treated people without question. After normal hours he would stay behind to deal with the knife, gunshot, and blunt instrument traumas characteristic of the area and which could not see the light of the official day.
I was poor at mathematics. Jephthah demystified it for me in one hour on a Saturday afternoon. Five years of higher schooling had left me none the wiser, and in a desperate attempt to save my academic career and secure my entry to the sixth form and advanced level studies, my father had turned to the university medical student who had “extra lessons” on Saturday afternoons. Jephthah spoke like a Spandau machine gun, the backbone of the German Blitzkrieg; short sharp bursts, which would not be taught in any Teacher Training Course. Yet to me, he made perfect sense. The veil of mystery was lifted and math ceased to be “that violent clash of meaningless symbols, the exact outcome of which, is impossible to predict.”
While in med school at UWI, Jephthah opened a tire repair shop on half way tree road, to take his mind off his books. This became the largest tire maintenance and repair facility in Kingston, and possibly Jamaica. There, he could talk to taxi drivers and delivery men into the early hours of the morning, while their tires were being patched.
His was a life filled with adventure, punctuated by violence, and characterised by a concern for the poor.
Controversy followed him, mostly because he subscribed to no master and charted his own course. He’s paid the price so far as I can tell without regret. Some may say good riddance. As for me, farewell my friend.
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