Monthly Archives: April 2020

Letter to my grandchildren in a time of pandemic – straits times

Posted: April 20, 2020 at 12:49 am

Dear Toby, Tara and Tommy,

I am writing this letter to you during a great health and economic crisis.

There are different theories about how it began, but the one I believe is that the trouble began when someone in China ate the meat of a bat and caught a bat virus. The lesson is: Do not eat the meat of wild animals.

The virus has spread all over the world, and has infected more than two million and killed more than 140,000 people. The economic cost is very great: millions of people out of work and many businesses destroyed.

When we look back on this painful period, I want you to remember the importance of the three values which your Chinese names stand for: compassion, trust and praise.

Toby, your Chinese name, Shan, means kindness and compassion. It is the most important virtue extolled by the world's major religious and ethical traditions. There is even a Charter for Compassion, formulated in 2009 by leading thinkers of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism, led by Karen Armstrong, the famous writer of religion.

The message of the charter is to treat others as you would like others to treat you. This is often referred to as the golden rule.

In Singapore, I saw many displays of kindness and compassion during the crisis. In one case, four restaurants owned by people I know decided to collaborate to send free food, every day, to the healthcare workers of one of our public hospitals. In another case, a group of kind-hearted Singaporeans, including children, would set out each night to look for Malaysian workers who were stranded in Singapore without accommodation. The good Samaritans would take them to hostels set up to provide free accommodation for such workers.

At the hawker centre which Nai Nai (granny) and I often go to, I was pleased to learn that the humble uncle who prepares my coffee was offering free coffee and tea to the cleaners of the hawker centre.

The poor are often more generous than the rich. The billionaires of Singapore have been conspicuously silent during this crisis. We have, unfortunately, no one like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos among our super-rich people.

Professor Tommy Koh with his wife Poh Siew Aing and their grandchildren (from left) Tommy, now two, Toby, nine, and Tara, five, celebrating Prof Koh's 82nd birthday last November. In an open letter to his grandchildren, Prof Koh shares what he feels are the most important values in the current coronavirus crisis, and how his grandchildren's Chinese names reflect those values. PHOTO: COURTESY OF TOMMY KOH

I am happy that several of my friends have used social media to highlight the plight of our hawkers and to appeal to our netizens to support them.

Many of our hawkers make only a modest living. They do not have much in savings to fall back on. If their patrons desert them, they have no income. With no income, they and their families will be reduced to a state of poverty. They desperately need our help.

Tara, your Chinese name, Shin, means trust.

Trust has played a very important role in the way in which Singapore has coped with the crisis.

The coronavirus pandemic raging across the world is taking a huge toll on lives and economies.

Already touted as the biggest global crisis since World War II, it has forced countries to take unprecedented measures - slamming borders shut, quarantining millions, shutting down workplaces and schools, and giving out massive stimulus and job rescue packages.

As the crisis unfolds, expect orthodoxies and established relationships to be challenged, with some upended and others reshaped.

How will global institutions, nations, economies and societies respond? To make sense of the impact and fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic, leading opinion leaders share their views of this global upheaval with The Straits Times in Coronavirus: The Great Disruption, a special series that runs this month in the Opinion section.

Trust has to be earned. It cannot be commanded by law. It cannot be demanded by a person or institution. A teacher, for example, cannot say to his students, "please trust me", if he is an untrustworthy person. A hospital cannot expect to be trusted if it does not have a good reputation for competence and honesty. The same is true for a political leader. He must be honest and transparent. He must be willing to tell the people the truth, even when the truth is unpleasant.

We are fortunate in Singapore to live in a high-trust society. We trust our doctors, hospitals and government officials. We trust our political leaders. Because there is a bond of mutual trust between the people and the Government, the people are willing to abide by the advice and edicts of our Government.

If the people did not believe in the Government's assurance that we have an adequate food supply, there would have been worse panic buying at our wet markets and supermarkets. People have mostly complied with the advice to keep a safe distance from one another and to work from home, because they know that the advice is based upon the best scientific evidence and international best practice.

The people in some other countries are not so lucky. In those countries, they do not trust their leaders, because the leaders have shown themselves to be untrustworthy. Some of the leaders do not have a good reputation for truth. Some leaders are irrational and do not believe in science and do not listen to expert advice. In such a situation, where trust is absent, chaos is often the result.

Tommy, your Chinese name, Song, means praise.

When this nightmare is over, we must not forget to praise the many people who have acted with courage, kindness and selflessness.

The first group we should praise are our doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers. As was the case in 2003, during the Sars (severe acute respiratory syndrome) epidemic, our healthcare workers have behaved like heroes. The reason why so few Covid-19 patients have died in Singapore is probably due to our excellent doctors, nurses and hospitals.

I wish to point out, in this respect, that our heroic nurses are paid about half the salaries of nurses in Hong Kong, Japan and Australia. We should put our money where our mouth is and increase the salaries of our nurses.

The second group we should praise are the officials, consisting of civilians as well as police and army officers, who have been interviewing the Covid-19 patients and tracing their contacts. It is because of their detective work that we are able to implement the policy of detect, isolate and contain.

The third group are our front-line workers, at our airport and seaport, police officers and other individuals who work around the clock to ensure our security.

The fourth group are the workers who look after our amenities, such as electricity, water, sanitation and waste disposal, as well as our bus captains, train drivers, taxi drivers and private-hire car drivers.

The fifth group are the workers in our wet markets, supermarkets, hawker centres, coffee shops and restaurants, and the people who deliver food to our homes. They have ensured that we have adequate supplies of both cooked and uncooked food.

The sixth group of people we should praise are our indispensable foreign workers, such as our domestic helpers, cleaners, construction and shipyard workers, and others who work in jobs that Singaporeans are not prepared to do. We owe the foreign workers an apology for the atrocious condition of their dormitories.

The seventh group of people we should praise are the members of the multi-ministerial task force, especially its two co-chairmen, Health Minister Gan Kim Yong and National Development Minister Lawrence Wong, and Associate Professor Kenneth Mak, director of medical services at the Ministry of Health. Their near-daily press conferences have done much to keep our people informed and reassured.

Finally, I want to say something about the people of Singapore. In normal times, they have often behaved in a manner that is below my expectations.

However, most of the people of Singapore have risen to the occasion. They have remained calm, united and resolute.

There is, unfortunately, a small minority who have indulged in panic buying and refused to abide by the safe distancing rule.

I hope the bad behaviour of this minority will not compel the Government to take even more stringent measures than the circuit breaker.

Your loving Ye Ye

Professor Tommy Koh, a veteran diplomat, is rector of Tembusu College at the National University of Singapore.

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Letter to my grandchildren in a time of pandemic - straits times

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An Irish entrepreneur and Bono are fixing the PPE crisis – Wired.co.uk

Posted: at 12:49 am

Ollie Millington/Getty Images

On April 7, an Airbus A330 landed at Dublin airport from China. The private plane, owned by air freight leasing company Avolon Aero, contained pallets of medical supplies destined for the Health Care Executive (HSE), the Irish health service. The sought-after equipment was the result of a collaboration between the public and private sector government officials both in Ireland and diplomats in China had worked with prominent private individuals who were able to bring their connections and influence to bear, including the rock star Bono, who donated 10 million to the project.

One of the people Bono approached to bring the project together was Liam Casey, the founder of logistics firm PCH International. Having spent the past 24 years working in China, the 54-year-old Irish entrepreneur has developed deep expertise in an area now critical to sourcing the equipment needed in the fight against coronavirus an intricate knowledge of global supply chains.

PCH doesnt reveal the identities of its clients, but they are widely reported to include many of the worlds biggest brands and consumer goods companies, including Apple, LOreal, Salesforce, Square and Beats. The company, which is headquartered in Cork, but has offices in San Francisco and Shenzhen works with brands to develop, manufacture and handle logistics for products that are either in your pocket or on your desk. Its end-to-end supply chain orchestration, Casey says. We take products from concept all the way through to a consumer.

PCH works at every level from design concepts to packaging, sourcing of raw materials and vetting of factories, it manages manufacturing and data services for brands to match clients with suppliers and to track orders and spot trends in real-time. It oversees e-commerce, fulfilment and distribution, often shipping directly to stores all over the world. It ships products as close to demand as possible in the way that, say, cloud computing scales services. The easiest way to understand PCH is to think of it as the Amazon Web Services of hardware.

As the UK government struggles to provide NHS workers and care givers with PPE equipment, its become clear that the current global demand for some medical supplies is insatiable and the marketplace treacherous. Unscrupulous middle-men act as brokers, supplying products of questionable provenance at vastly inflated prices Casey says that he has received numerous approaches from dubious sources every day claiming to access to large volumes of PPE and governments are outbidding each other for supplies and, allegedly, conducting piracy in order to access the crucial equipment. China is manufacturing around 200 million face masks per day with demand vastly outstripping supply.

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, an EU agency, estimates that for each confirmed coronavirus case a health service would need 14 to 24 separate sets of personal protective equipment every day. According to Johns Hopkins University there are currently two million people who have tested positive for the virus. If even less than five per cent of these people are hospitalised, tens of millions of sets would be required per month, without even considering the demand from other organisations that need PPE, such as care homes.

So many people are chasing PPE, countries are chasing it, different states in the US are chasing it, hospitals are chasing it, so its hard to actually get solid supply, Casey says. Our focus is making sure that were comfortable with anything we get if youre putting a mask in the hands of a frontline worker it has to work.

Casey says that the only way to do this is to send teams to walk the line: to inspect every stage of the manufacturing process from raw materials to the finished product. You identify factories that have the licenses, you identify the factories that have access to materials, you identify the guys that have the automation and the capacity in their buildings, you want to make sure they can handle the volume.

Typically, PCH aims to move products from the production line to retailers in the US within 36 hours: products are trucked from factories to Hong Kong airport, pass through Chinese customs, loaded onto air freight for a 12-hour journey to the west coast and then through customs in the US and onwards to their destination. PCH works with partners on this final leg of the journey, which Casey describes as the last mile.

While PCH hasnt previously manufactured PPE, it has produced FDA-approved products since 2004. Regulation of this is determined by the International Organization for Standards, a Geneva-based group that oversees various commercial and industrial standards via representatives from across the world. The specific standard for medical devices is known as ISO 13485. Individual countries manufacture masks with physical properties and performance characteristics that adhere to this and can be expected to function at a similar level: the Chinese version of this is known as KN95, in Europe its FFP2 and the US N95.

These medical grade masks are different from the type that PCH is also working to source as part of an initiative by, among others, Y Combinator founder Sam Altman, who is hoping to crowdsource one billion masks for US workers within the next 180 days. These single-use, textile-based masks will have a Bacterial Filtration Efficiency (BFE) of around 95 per cent. While not FDA approved, they are suitable for use in hospitals for non-frontline staff. Casey says that the biggest orders thus far have come from service companies, such as food delivery.

In order to keep freight costs down, this PPE will be shipped across the Pacific to Long Beach in California. Typically, this takes thirty days, but faster boats have been sourced which will take two weeks. Casey argues that this is the optimal way to ensure consistent supply as quickly as possible as long as PCH has visibility of the supply chain and it functions as it should do, then it can control what happens on either end of the time the equipment spends on the ocean. Transit time is real, that exists, but whats not real is all of the warehousing and all of the storage and all of the hoarding, and all of the gouging thats happening outside of the clean supply chain, he says. For us, its all about the quality of the factories and the data from the factories. We want to know the output on an hourly basis. Once we have that we can match it with wherever it needs to be We use data and AI to know where this stuff needs to go. Its the ultimate matching of demand and product, and technology can be used to do that.

Whether shipping consumer electronics or surgical masks, PCHs aim is to use data in order to shorten the supply chain if goods are in the hands of the consumer more quickly, the supply chain has a higher level of liquidity and capital requirements are lessened.

You have to pay up front because the factories are paying for the raw materials up front, paying for the equipment up front. We want factories that will build 5 million masks a day, so they have to make big investments, Casey says. Any transactions that are happening at the moment in China, theyre all cash up front.

China was able to ramp up production quickly as factories that had previously been producing other types, of products, such as consumer electronics, switched to producing masks. There are companies in China that, in January had never made a mask, and today they have a run rate of 30 million per day, Casey says. It also helps if you can mobilise the worlds largest oil, gas and petrochemical conglomerate company: the Chinese government instructed Sinopec to produce the raw materials in February.

At these kind of volumes you have to know where the raw material is. Wheres it coming from? When is that arriving? Is it on trucks? How fast is it going to get there? Casey says. If youve got a factory producing five million masks per day, it doesnt take long for those masks to fill up a lot of space, so youve got to create continuous flow as fast as possible.

The covid-19 crisis may lead to shifts in global supply chains, with some commentators arguing that western governments will not want to be reliant on east Asian manufacturing hubs again. But, for the foreseeable future, China will maintain its place as the worlds leading manufacturer. And, whether youre producing 900 smartphones or masks at 30 pence per unit, Casey maintains the golden rule: youve got to walk the line.

How did coronavirus start and what happens next?

The UK's job retention furlough scheme, explained

Can Universal Basic Income help fight coronavirus?

Best video and board games for self-isolating couples

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An Irish entrepreneur and Bono are fixing the PPE crisis - Wired.co.uk

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Does Beer Go Bad? We Asked an Expert – gearpatrol.com

Posted: at 12:49 am

Editors Note: Due to COVID-19, many breweries and beer shops have begun selling beer online or allowing for delivery or curbside pick-up. If youre able, support these small, local businesses with an order.

Does beer go bad? We chatted with ABC Beer Co. beer bar owner and Certified Cicerone Zach Mack about everything you need to know to make sure your beer haul stays fresh. Take notes.

Definitely, Mack says. You have to look at it as the freshness of this as something like bread or like a food product because thats what it is.

What does skunked beer taste like? If you dont already know, youve probably encountered it before. Mack describes it as a skunky smell like fresh-cut grass or weed or skunk spray. Basically, rotten beer.

Exposure to heat, air and light essentially, Mack says.

These are the three enemies of fresh beer. In this day-and-age of 16-ounce cans being the preferred vessel, light isnt as much of an issue as it used to be it obviously still is for bottles though.

Hops are photosensitive and theyre also sensitive to air, just like everything that breaks down in beer, Mack says. Even when beer is sealed in a can, and cans are better vessels than bottles, it still has some exposure to air thats going to break down the compounds.

While in-person shopping has decreased drastically, knowing how to spot beer thats expired is crucial. Nine times out of ten, turn the can over and look at the bottom, Mack says. Usually they print right on it the date that it was canned unless stated otherwise. If it just gives you a date and its recent, you can assume thats the canned-on date.

For bottles, especially those from larger breweries, Mack says to check the neck to see if theres a bottled-on date or best-by date. Occasionally its on the bottom of the label, tucked away in the corner near the barcode or the address and information.

Weve all seen those giant stacks of beer cases in supermarkets and grocery stores. Thats a good sign theres going to be some too-old beer there. The big tell is those huge stacks youre inevitably going to be left with a bunch of beer thats old. So if youre ever in a place where theres big stacks of beer, double-check the codes on those because thats a huge tell that theres going to be a good amount of expired beer, Mack says.

Generally speaking, fresher beer is better beer, but some beers lend themselves to aging and some dont at all. Mack says beer styles that rely on hop flavor are the most susceptible to going bad quickly. IPAs are very much the most sensitive style to aging because hops die off exponentially quickly, he says.

Thats because IPAs depend on hops for their flavor, and hops are photosensitive. Because of this, IPAs should typically be drunk within three or four weeks after canning/bottling, maximum. Not only will it taste different as time goes on, but it will also produce some pretty rank off-flavors.

The oxidized taste that people talk about is if youve ever grabbed an IPA thats been in your fridge too long and opened it without realizing, it tastes a lot like paper or cardboard. That oxidized flavor comes right through and its pretty nasty, Mack says.

Beers like bourbon barrel-aged stouts, pilsners, sours all styles not reliant on hops for flavor age gracefully and should stay good long enough to drink.

A simple way to extend the life of your beer: stand it up. If space isnt an issue you should always store your beer upright because that reduces surface area, Mack says. If its flat, it exposes more beer to the surface area and oxygen is going to turn it faster.

While observing social distancing and self-isolation norms is priority, Macks golden rule still holds true: The best thing to do if you have any doubts is to ask. Most of the stores stocking beer thats worth buying fresh will know. A good thing to say is Do you guys have anything you just got in this week that you really like? And most times the staff love that because they can say, Oh yeah. This is brand new and we really like it. Its a quick way to find out what really came through.

Ryan Brower serves as Commerce Editor and also writes about beer and surfing for Gear Patrol. He lives in Brooklyn, loves the ocean and almost always has a film camera handy.

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Rev. Owusu Bempah predicts the emergence of WW3 after coronavirus – GhPage

Posted: at 12:47 am

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As the World is coming together to fight the outbreak of the deadly coronavirus Ghanaian prophet Rev. Isaac Owusu Bempah has also stated that there would be the emergence of World War III(WW3).

According to the founder and leader of Glorious Word and Power Ministry International, he in 2018 saw a vision which a wounded Eagle surrounded by stars was attacking a dragon.

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He stated the the dragon had earlier used its tail to destroy the world an action that made the eagle and stars angry who ganged up to attack the dragon.

Explaining his prophecy into details he made mention that in this case the Eagle represents America and the Stars representing the European Union with the dragon representing China.

He noted that America and the European Union would rise up and start a war with China very soon due to the outbreak of the coronavirus.

Also Read: I will never respond to Hon. Kennedy Agyapong again Angel Obinim

The Dragon in the prophecy which I saw in 2018 represents China. I could see that this Dragon was backed by other countries, countries that think and act like China itself. The Eagle surrounded by the stars represents America and the European Union. That means America will be supported by other members of the European to go to war against China,he said in an interview.

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There’s no excuse for coronavirus aid to small businesses running out – The Week

Posted: at 12:46 am

How the PPP came to this impasse involves a whole host of colliding factors: the Republican Party's nihilism; congressmembers' bad instincts when it comes to designing fiscal policy; their ignorance about monetary policy; and the raw health threat the coronavirus poses to any large gathering of people including Congress itself.

The first issue is the PPP's $350 billion allocation, which was meant to cover two-and-a-half months of payroll. But add up all the small businesses in America defined as those with fewer than 500 employees and their combined payroll expenses over that time period come to around $700 billion. The program works on a first-come, first-serve basis, so businesses with established relationships with the banks got to it first. Poorer businesses, those with fewer connections and clout, and those in mostly black neighborhoods and other marginalized communities got left out in the cold. The PPP also included provisions that let bigger companies with more than 500 employees get loans under certain circumstances, like if they ran restaurant chains. The fact that the program's rollout was a logistical nightmare didn't help matters either.

All told, only 1.64 million applications for loans were processed through the program less than six percent of the 29.6 million U.S. businesses with under 500 workers. Meanwhile, something like four out of five small businesses only have enough cash on hand to weather two months, at most. You can rest assured that those businesses with the least amount of buffer are also the most marginalized, and thus probably last in line for the PPP's now-empty pot.

In other words, a few minutes of research on Google should've made it blindingly obvious to Congress that $350 billion was a woefully inadequate sum. Nothing prevented lawmakers from setting it higher. In fact, there's no reason they needed to specify a dollar cap on the program at all.

The way the PPP works is that private banks originate the loans, under terms set by the government. Then, if the small business abides by certain rules particularly keeping its workers on and using at least 75 percent of the loan to meet their payroll the loan is forgiven. Of course, that loses the bank money, so the point of the $350 billion Congress appropriated was to plug the hole in the banks' balance sheets. Policymakers could've just written the law so that banks could give out as many PPP loans as the small business community asked for, and Congress would commit to spending as much as needed to make that happen. They could do that right now! But instead, for no reason other than raw ideological opposition to big spending, Democrats and Republicans are batting around the idea of adding another specific dollar amount probably $250 billion to the program.

But the situation is even more ridiculous than that. Alongside Congress's fiscal efforts, the Federal Reserve also rolled out a huge series of monetary policy programs to combat the coronavirus recession. One of those programs is an offer to accept PPP loans as collateral in exchange for cheap credit. Basically, the Fed told the banks originating the PPP loans that it will take those loans off their books for them, in exchange for that bank taking another loan out from the Fed. Since the entire financial system is desperate for super cheap credit from the central bank right now, that's going to look like a pretty sweet deal.

This does mean that the loss from forgiving the PPP loans will now fall on the Fed's books, rather than the originating bank's. But the Fed is not like private banks; it doesn't have to keep its balance sheet positive lest it go under. The central bank is an arm of the U.S. government, and shares the U.S. government's ability to create infinite U.S. dollars. It can absorb all the losses it wants. (The Fed likes to keep its balance sheet positive for appearances' sake, but it doesn't need to.)

Technically speaking, this backing from the Fed means the sky's already the limit on how much lending the PPP program can do. It would probably behoove Congress to make the situation official: amend the PPP program to specify there is no dollar cap, and the Fed is expected to take all the PPP loans from the private banks. But as Nathan Tankus, the research director at the Modern Money Network who has done yeoman's work explaining all the actions the Fed has taken in the coronavirus crisis points out, this announcement by the Fed effectively renders congressional spending for the Payroll Protection Program moot.

Unfortunately, congressmembers' imaginations are not nearly so expansive. As I said, they're debating another infusion of $250 billion into the program. And it's not even clear they'll be able to do that. Perversely, both sides agree on the need to fund the PPP more. But the Democrats also want to include more help for hospitals, state governments, and local governments all of whom are facing their own fiscal crisis as well as some adjustments to the PPP's rules to make sure minority-owned businesses and other firms with less access get more priority. Republicans, in turn, are balking at those asks and demanding the $250 billion infusion be passed as a standalone measure.

I wrote a while back that all of these ideas are good and necessary, and thus should lay a foundation for an easy deal. But I apparently underestimated the GOP's intransigence. The White House and Senate Democrats are reportedly trying to hammer out an accord, but as of this writing things were still up in the air.

The final X-factor here is the coronavirus itself. Congress is officially on recess until May 4, and lawmakers are reluctant to physically gather again for health reasons. Whether this is forgivable caution or a dereliction of public duty, I will leave to readers to decide. They can still technically pass laws in a "pro forma" process, but that requires all bills be agreed to unanimously. Given the disagreements over how to design the next injection of money for the PPP, that's a pretty big hurdle. Some lawmakers are scrambling to put together a system for holding official votes remotely, but Congress has never done that before, and both Democratic and Republican leadership in the House and the Senate is resistant.

One way or another though, Congress will have to step up, and fast. Small businesses employ roughly half the country, the Payroll Protection Program was the one big bulwark defending them from the coronavirus' economic devastation, and it just went away.

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‘The Platform’ explained: Two economists on Netflix phenomenon – Los Angeles Times

Posted: at 12:46 am

Warning: The following contains spoilers for The Platform, now streaming on Netflix.

In the Netflix film The Platform, director Galder Gaztelu-Urrutias allegory about class warfare and the increasing fragility of our social pyramid, university student Goreng (Ivn Massagu) willingly surrenders himself into a concrete tower-like prison for six months.

Referred to by staff as the Vertical Self-Management Center, the bizarre monolith houses its residents in hundreds of stacked cells which are randomly reassigned each month while the titular platform descends once a day bearing food. The platform stops on each level for a fixed period of time and those on the lower levels must pick over whatever is left from those above. By the time the platform descends past a certain level, those leftovers are nonexistent.

Theres an Orwellian thing going on there, said Susan Harmeling, an associate professor of entrepreneurship and an expert in business ethics at the Marshall School of Business at USC. Instead of calling it hell on earth, which it actually is, they call it the vertical self-management center or the VSMC, which makes it seem a lot more sterile.

Each floor of the VSMC has two cellmates who remain constant (at least as long as theyre alive), and each is permitted one personal item inside; Goreng chooses a copy of Don Quixote, while his cellmate Trimagasi selects a self-sharpening knife.

The Spanish-language Platform quickly became ensconced in Netflixs top 10 most sampled titles in the U.S. upon its release March 20 (a rare feat for a foreign language film; ) and shot to the top of IMDbs most searched titles. One reason to explain the unexpectedly popularity could be the movies exploration of the dark side of capitalism, the effects of which are even more glaring today as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and the burgeoning rise of the socialist movement.

The Times caught up with two economists Harmeling and Nico Voigtlnder, an associate professor at UCLAs Anderson School of Management to discuss how The Platform reflects our global economy, its resonance in wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and what each of them would choose as their one item in the pit.

Ivn Massagu stars as Goreng in Netflixs The Platform.

(Netflix)

What kinds of themes and philosophical theories did you recognize at play in The Platform?

Voigtlnder: I immediately thought of the tragedy of the commons, which refers to the problem where, if anyone has access to common land, youre going to have overuse in the end. Its related to the prisoners dilemma where individually every persons incentive is [self-serving in nature], which is of course bad for society. It would be much better to come to an agreement where you say, Were all using the land [or food] somewhat less so that theres a benefit for everyone. But you would always go back to that situation of overuse, unless you have enforcement or some code of conduct among these individuals that is very strong.

Harmeling: Theres a theory called the veil of ignorance from John Rawls, and its about designing a society where we are all behind this veil and dont know whether were going to be rich or poor or what our natural abilities are. Certainly, you wouldnt want to take a chance on not knowing, thats not the kind of society I think anybody would want to live in. Theres also populism versus Marxism versus capitalism, and nihilism versus idealism, and also Maslows hierarchy of needs.

[In the film] everyone loses human empathy because theyre in a fight for their lives for survival and cant afford to be self-actualized and have empathy because they dont even have anything to eat. That vicious nihilism and lack of empathy, the empty populism, really, reflects the zeitgeist right now.

Along with recent films like Knives Out, Parasite, and Joker, class warfare and wealth disparity have been explored in contemporary media to both critical and commercial acclaim. Did you notice a through line between The Platform and those other movies?

Harmeling: One thing that I thought of that is also true of Parasite is this idea of the global elite. In The Platform, [Goreng] exhibits the cluelessness and sort of gullibility and naive idealism of the global elites by bringing a book into the pit instead of a knife or a gun. Like hes going down there to do an intellectual study and to earn a degree. Then he realizes, "... here I am, Im stuck in it.

That naive idealism comes through in Parasite too with the son saying, Rich people are so gullible. That idea of not knowing what you dont know was another theme that I thought came through really clearly. The nihilism of Joker also comes through here too. Sort of the clown leading the clowns, the emptiness of populism.

Why do you think movies and television series about these themes are achieving popularity now? Its not as if wealth or income disparity is a new thing.

Harmeling: I think theres a reckoning coming. The millennial generation has fewer assets than the couple of generations that preceded them. So I think that theres this fascination with somebody like Bernie Sanders by young people, because people are scared and dont see a path to the wealth of their parents, to homeownership, to having enough stability to start a family. Theres climate change, theres so many issues that people of this generation are facing. People are saying, You know what, this isnt fair that these corporations arent paying taxes or that the top 1% to 2% has such a share of the wealth of this country.

Everybodys terrified of the word socialist, and God forbid communist or Marxist, but it seems to me that the pendulum is probably going to start swinging back towards competent government and some regulation and reining in of some of this literal feeding at the trough.

Alexandra Masangkay perches on a spread of leftovers in a scene from Netflixs The Platform.

(Netflix)

The film takes on a new resonance in wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Did you draw any parallels between what was happening in the film and what is going on in the world now while you were watching it?

Harmeling: Those who were feasting at the great banquet in The Platform are probably the same people who can buy a ventilator or are already in better health because they have healthcare in the first place. Rich people or people with good jobs have healthcare, so they have a better chance of surviving this pandemic. Its disproportionately affecting communities of color, which is shocking but not surprising.

Its this idea of the haves and the have-nots and the fallacy of trickle-down Reaganomics. There was a literal trickle down going on in The Platform where the people at the top eat the best, and by the time you get to the bottom, theres nothing to eat. And were seeing with this coronavirus crisis that being played out to the nth degree.

Voigtlnder: I actually had a different thought. I was thinking of this platform as how we hand down our planet from generation to generation and how its just getting more and more depleted as time goes by. Ultimately, what we should aim for as humanity is to hand [the Earth] over to our children in a way that its still usable for them. For me, that was the allegory of the movie.

How did you feel about the ending?

Harmeling: There seems to be some debate about what it was supposed to mean. That youve somehow saved the next generation or that the next generation needs to save itself? I wasnt sure what the message was. In a way, it was a good ending, in the fact that it wasnt completely definitive or a closed book. It left you reflecting on various things, and that is maybe frustrating but pretty effective.

Voigtlnder: I think it was effective. My interpretation was that on the way down to do something for the common good, [Goreng] got blood on his hands and lost his purity. Sometimes to do things for the common good you have to break with your own ideals.

Which of the characters in The Platform do you feel had the approach that would lead to the most favorable outcome for all?

Harmeling: In the end, maybe it is [Goreng] who has the best approach. We come to believe he doesnt get out [of the pit], but hes helped to propel... the child who we assume ended up getting out. Even through his navet, to bring a book to whats essentially a Darwinistic knife fight, maybe in the end love and altruism is really what will win out. Id like to think so anyway.

What one item would you choose to bring?

Voigtlnder: I would have to think about what I would bring but the incentives are clear. You just want to have the most powerful weapon in there.

Harmeling: [Laughs] You know, Id probably do the same thing [as Goreng]. Id probably bring a book of poetry or something like that. As much as I am almost embarrassed to admit that, it would allow me to at least at some moments think other thoughts or remember and reflect on beauty and offer perhaps some motivation and inspiration to try to get through it. Even though I say how naive he was, I wouldnt bring a knife or a gun to that fight either.

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David Hockney Says Smokers Have Developed an Immune System Against Coronavirus – Observer

Posted: at 12:46 am

As living with the coronavirus becomes the new normal for communities all over the world, artists like Yayoi Kusama and Mo Willems have stepped forward to offer ways to self-soothe or stay entertained while practicing social distancing. Now, David Hockney, one of the most famous and successful living painters in the world, has added his voice to the conversation via a letter he sent to the Daily Mail. Controversially, Hockney is of the opinion that smoking cigarettes could provide people with a defense against the coronavirus, a stance that he backs up by citing data from the outbreak in China that points to fewer smokers being admitted to the hospitalfor COVID-19 treatment.

Smokers have developed an immune system to this virus, Hockney wrote. With all these figures coming out, its beginning to look like that to me. Im serious. Additionally, the artist weighed in on his own mortality. Ive smoked for more than 60 years, but I think Im quite healthy, Hockney added. How much longer do I have? Im going to die of either a smoking-related illness or a non-smoking-related illness, Hockney wrote. While this particular flavor of contemplative nihilism is certainly entertaining coming from one of the most celebrated artists in the world, Hockneys theory that smokers are less likely to get the coronavirus is problematic at best and dangerous at worst.

SEE ALSO: Marina Abramovis Dangerous Work Has Given Her an Interesting Perspective on Coronavirus

The World Health Organization writes that smokers are in fact more likely to be vulnerable to COVID-19, due to the fact that potentially contaminated fingers and cigarettes are coming into frequent contact with a persons open mouth when they smoke. Smokers may also already have lung disease or reduced lung capacity, which would greatly increase risk of serious illness, WHO continues. Additionally, although its clear that more research is warranted, recent studies are beginning to trickle out which indicate that smoking is likely associated with the negative progression and adverse outcomes of COVID-19.

Its possible Hockney swiped his theory from rumors that nicotine has the ability to downregulate the enzyme that binds COVID-19 to humans, which has been getting a decent amount of circulation on Twitter. Its a theory that has little to no scientific basis, particularly in the face of the mounting evidence that smoking increases the risk of COVID-19 symptoms growing more severe. Right now, its important to practice common sense and remember that cigarettes have been proven to be really, really bad for you. Until the world knows enough about coronavirus in order to develop a vaccine, its probably best to assume that smoking wont save you.

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Soul Asylum’s Dave Pirner on the Band’s New Album – SPIN

Posted: at 12:46 am

Dave Pirner is doing just fine. The founding and last original member of Minneapolis alt-rock legends Soul Asylum, Pirner thrived in the late 1980s and well into the 90s on righteous anger and deceptively well-crafted songs. Peaking commercially in the mid-1990s when hits like Runaway Train, Black Gold and Miserywhich is really one of the most underrated singles of the decade, but I digresswere prevalent on radio and the charts, Pirner didnt flame out or fight changing tides into the new millennium. He grew up.

Moving to New Orleans, getting married and having a son gave Pirner a new sense of artistic freedom. Continuing to make music in the 2000s (The Silver Lining in 2006 and Delayed Reaction in 2012, Soul Asylum is set to release the aptly titled Hurry Up and Wait. Its the bands first album since Change of Fortune in 2016, as well as the first since getting a divorce and returning to his hometown stomping grounds of Minnesota.

Sitting in a lounge overlooking an ominously stormy day in the Century City section of Los Angeles, theres a slight unease in the office just days before coronavirus would shut the city down for the foreseeable future. Still, Pirner is in good spirits, cracking open the first craft beer of the interview and chatting about finding a copy of Elvis Costellos Greatest Hits on cassette at a truck stop recently. He looks great, by the way, like he could still post up with the best of them in a game of pickup basketball. Hes as smart and witty as one might imagine, taking everything from his comfy spot in the world of music to the creeping pandemic in stride.

I embraced the no future part of punk rock where there was just kind of nihilism and you didnt worry about what was going to happen the next day, Pirner chuckles about his view of 2020 way back in his bands beginnings. Me and my silly friends from Minneapolis, there was part of us that never thought wed make it to even 30 years old, let alone here.

As talk turns to the Hurry Up and Wait, the first Soul Asylum album recorded at Minneapolis Nicollet Studios in years, the question remains: can you go home again?

That was the question I asked myself every day, Pirner ponders. For so long, I felt like I didnt know where home was. I finally tried to settle down in New Orleans, and that didnt work out. There are certain parts of being back in Minnesota that are surprisingly satisfying, like being able to go see my mom and hanging out with my nephews. Its sort of the polar opposite of New Orleans, which is why I went there in the first place. Im used to six months of winter. You should take advantage of it if you can handle it. Its like living on the moon or something.

Digging into the inspiration of Hurry Up and Wait, Pirner says the process was natural and spontaneous. I cant really explain why, but part of it was being back in Minneapolis, and just being able to hit the studio at a moments notice. I liked being back where I started and feeling comfortable with the band. It was pretty painless.

Before he heads over to Hollywood to dig through some vinyl, Pirner contemplates the career arc of his band from the planet of Minnesota all those years ago maneuvering its way into 2020.

Ive just been playing in this band, and all this crazy shit has happened around the band. I think I was reserved about buying into a lot of it like this isnt gonna last, he sighed. Part of it is a relief. I dont know where any of this is going, but to sort of come out on the other side like, Im still able to do this. My experience in New Orleans was amazing. People down there, they play until they drop dead. So to still be hereits nice. A pleasant surprise.

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Soul Asylum's Dave Pirner on the Band's New Album - SPIN

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A Novelists Ambition to Define America – The Atlantic

Posted: at 12:46 am

The New Orleans of early-60s civil-rights battles, with its assortment of right-wing racists, do-gooders, pot-smoking hipsters, and con artists, gave Stone the material for his first novel, A Hall of Mirrors, published in 1967. Stones approach to the sociopolitical situation is utterly oblique, Bell writes. With the characters paying little attention to it, it simply builds itself out of inchoate dark matter, like the late-afternoon New Orleans rainstorms. A Hall of Mirrors traces a geometry that Stone, a master of novelistic architecture, would go on to use many times: He intercuts among three protagonists who drift along on events, almost without agency, sliding downward but struggling toward some meaning that they never reach, gathering great narrative momentum as they converge on a plane of social tension thats headed toward an apocalypse.

Rheinhardt, a juicehead and former clarinet virtuoso who has squandered his talent out of self-destructive spite, arrives in New Orleans by Greyhound in the aftermath of Mardi Gras. He stumbles into a job as an announcer for an ultraconservative radio station, fabricating inflammatory reports that today ought to be called fake news. The station owner, a plutocratic bigot named Bingamon, explains to Rheinhardt: People cant see because they dont have the orientation, isnt that right? And a lot of what were trying to do is to give them that orientation. Bingamons purpose is to incite hatred and start a race war that will crush black peoples political aspirations. Rheinhardt is too lost in private despair to object.

He falls in with Geraldine, a young drifter from West Virginiaone of Stones few successfully realized female characters. For a time, Geraldine and Rheinhardt make a wounded pair in the French Quarter, until he cant bear the intimacy and drives her away. These scenes are full of a strange pathos, as when Rheinhardt notices a cigarette burn on Geraldines stomach and says,

You been ill used. Youre a salamander.

Whys that?

Youre a salamander because you walk through fire and you live on air.

Geraldine closed her eyes.

I wish, she said.

The third protagonist is their upstairs neighbor, Morgan Raineya disturbed seeker after humanness, his own and others, who goes door-to-door conducting surveys in black neighborhoods and becomes the unwitting tool of Bingamons scheme to gut the welfare rolls.

These three meet their separate fates in the novels long climax, Bingamons Patriotic Revival, a stadium rally in which a staged riot spins out of control. Stone was a realistHemingway, Fitzgerald, and Dos Passos were among his influencesand a lifelong believer in the moral valence of fiction; he shunned the surrealism and metafiction of his contemporaries John Barth, Donald Barthelme, and Thomas Pynchon. But A Hall of Mirrors, like much of Stones other work, ends in a hallucinatory spasm of altered consciousness and rhetorical excess. Geraldine, stoned and desperate, searches the stadium in vain for Rheinhardt, who is onstage, wasted, preparing to conduct an imaginary symphony orchestra. On cue, he exhorts the crowd of thousands with a perversion of virtuosity that displays Stones power to combine irony and terror:

Rheinhardts performance is a fun-house mockery of the kind of political theater that has lately risen from underground to occupy the main stage of American life. Years later, Stone said of his first novel: I had taken America as my subject, and all my quarrels with America went into it. They were a lovers quarrels, equal parts longing and disillusionment, held in a tension that never broke either way. Morgan Raineys blighted idealism is as central to Stones vision as Rheinhardts fluent nihilism is.

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The American Dream Is Collapsing. Are We Too Angry to Fix It? – Esquire

Posted: at 12:46 am

Years of Hope, Days of Rage. Its the subtitle of Todd Gitlins history of the 1960s, and a reminder that peace and harmony have never been staples of American life. Self-government is a messy business, a constant collision of interests, ideologies, and primal instincts. Thats particularly true in a nation that was in contravention of its founding principles from its first moment, and that has spent every moment since struggling to make them real. If you look back fondly on a happier, more tranquil time, you are gazing back on a landscape of American mythology.

And yet it feels worse now. Its hard to dispute that, in the words of the oft-mocked Marianne Williamson, theres a dark, psychic force at work in this country today. (This was true even before we were hit by a pandemic, when this story went to press.) By the end of the primary season, the major 2020 presidential candidates that remained were either channeling this energy or attempting to defuse it. Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump constitute two stark expressions of populist ragethe incumbent president as a vessel of fear and resentment of a changing world and Sanders as the next wave of reaction against a system in which so few have taken so much for themselves and left so little for everyone else to scrap over. Only one directed this rage at the material source of our vast structural problems, while the other offered scapegoats. But they both seized on our perilous state of affairs. Joe Biden, meanwhile, reached the end of primary season running on a return to the Decent and the Normal, as a healer who could balm the blisters of rage without truly putting out the fire.

The top 20 percent of American households control 77 percent of all household wealth in this country, more than triple what the middle 60 percent of households control. The wealthiest 1 percent controls $25 trillion all by itself, more than that middle 60 percent190 million peoplehas with $18 trillion. But any recognizable definition of middle class is collapsing anyway, shattered along with many rungs on the ladder of social mobility that undergirds our most intoxicating export, the American Dream. We cannot survive as a nation where ZIP code is destiny, and where a man can pledge to spend a fraction of his $60 billion fortune to make himself the president while more than half of our citizens live paycheck to paycheck and half a million sleep on the streets each night. Fifty-three million Americans are classified as low-wage workers who do not make a living wage44 percent of the workforce and the fastest-growing part of it. We cannot go on when parents no longer believe their children will lead a better life than they did, and while millions feel the whole world slipping away from them. American gross domestic product grew over the last several years while average life expectancy fell, fueled in part by deaths of despair. Hope is a terrible thing to lose.

It is not just Twitter thats making us so angry, nor is it just cable news. Nor is it even the injustice weve accepted since our founding, or the discrimination we continue to allow now. Its not just that real wages have failed to keep up with the rising cost of living for decades, or that televisions have gotten so cheap while the costs of health care and college have exploded. Its not merely that we increasingly get our information from different ecosystems and thus live in separate worlds, unable to communicate with one another and find a way forward. More than all that, we have stripped too many of our people of their hope, and rage and despair flowed readily into the void. Sometimes it even gives way to apathy and nihilism, unreason as defense mechanism. Trolling as politics, food-fight discourse. Even the righteous anger never seems to purify us, providing heat but no light. Perhaps there will come a time when things no longer deepen and darken by the day, as new enemies perpetually corporialize in the shadow of our own creeping delusion. As it stands, the fury threatens to subsume us.

This article appears in the April/May issue of Esquire. Subscribe

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