02-01 Political Leadership
China is distributing free masks around the world. The future global leader will be Xi Jinping of China. The Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, has demonstrated brilliant political leadership. Besides declaring an early one-month nation-wide lockdown, she has declared the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy to be essential workers.It is a combination…
02-02 Public Health
Public health officials say the Coronavirus was transmitted to humans from animals in a Chinese market that sells fresh bat meat. It was a history project in high school about the Spanish Flu and WW1, that led to a long chat with my grandparents. Public health? What’s that? I’m talking 1919. My grandfather and their…
02-03 Public Finances
Central banks are printing money. They are even buying the debt of corporations. Thank goodness those bankers aren’t politicians. He was the major shareholder in a major company he had started after WW2, and was moving its head office from Nassau to the Cayman Islands. And, he gave me his bloody dog. The Caymans is…
02-04 International Relations
China lied about the virus and fudged the numbers. But it will win the propaganda war by giving free supplies to 80 undeveloped nations. Peter Drucker was the pioneer of today’s global economy. He was the leading management consultant of his day and an advisor to governments around the world. We met in 1977 in…
02-05 National Security
New vaccines and medicines for the Coronavirus will be weapons of war and matters of national security. My life has not been as exciting as James Bond’s. But when the government asks you to sign The Official Secrets Act, it means you are going to have access to information that could be dangerous in the…
02-06 The USA
The USA is in decline and China is in ascendancy. Covid-19 is a global killer and the US, which was half the world economy after WW2, has lost the pandemic war. The cover of Time magazine tells it all. A nation that has troops in 150 countries, has to borrow $4 trillion dollar to pay…
02-07 Winners and Losers
The pandemic is changing western societies. Public health and other spending coming home. Anything that impacts the globe will change people’s habits and interests. It is a new world of winners and losers. Something more sinister, however, is happing in the US. The combination of poor air quality linked to the wild fires in California,…
02-09 Surprises
Women leaders better at handling the pandemic. US unravelling as a society and as a global leader. Technology and pandemic making working and eating at home a permanent reality. All over the world people’s lives are being changed by the pandemic. I can understand this reality because I discussed the Spanish Flu so often with…
02-10 Vaccines
We need a Covid-19 vaccine that works for 90% of those who receive it. And at least 70% of the population must be willing to be vaccinated. Treatments for those who are sick may be more successful than vaccines designed to prevent the disease. I was only nine and my mother said our doctor was…
02-11 Child Brides
Unemployment and poverty driven by the global Covid-19 pandemic is forcing families to push their young girls into marriage. My grandmother was one of six girls and two boys born in Romania. Only her brothers received any schooling. She worked in the family upholstery business beginning at age five. The father’s major task was to…