Episode 25- Of Corona Viruses and Democratic Primaries

Rich takes a short break from the Common Bridge theme and does a quick half hour on the Corona Virus and the Primary Elections.  Good fun!

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Speaker 1 0:04

[inaudible] .

Speaker 2 0:05

Welcome to the podcast, the common bridge with Richard helpy . Rich is a successful entrepreneur in the technology, health and finance space. He and his wife Leslie, are also philanthropists with interest in civic and artistic endeavors, but with a primary focus on medically and educationally underserved children. My name is Brian Kruger . And from time to time I'll be the moderator and host of this podcast. Hello everyone and welcome to what is supposed to be the common bridge. But as the listening audience knows and some of the members out there, sometimes we throw you a curve and we're throwing you one right now. This is , uh , a podcast that rich and I did just last night , um, because we wanted to talk a little bit about Corona virus , uh, the economy and the elections. So we're going to join bill Michaels on Thursday, I believe this week with , uh, Rich's interview with him , uh, which is very much the common bridge and its policy. And it's a great interview with bill Michaels when we talk about the supply chain economy and it actually ties into the Corona virus. But for today, join us. This is rich help unite talking about everything that's happening this week on the Eve of super Tuesday. So thanks for listening and we'll see you on the other side. Well, welcome to the common bridge and of course it's not the common bridge. Rich, I've done it to you. Again. I've found you were doing this remote and I just got to ask you about what's been going on the last week. This time it's Corona virus. This time it's uh , a couple of , um , uh, candidates dropping out. So how you doing and tell us what's going on.

Speaker 3 1:52

Oh , well thanks Brian. And that I have no clinical chops at all. No medical training at all. Um, and I have seen a lot of medical data go by and I did try to talk to as many people as I could and , and do as much reading. And , uh, this Corona virus is indeed serious. Uh , and the seriousness of it is because it's unknown, the depth of it, the breadth of it. Uh, these are things that we're still learning about. Um, I, I've been encouraged by the steps that many countries have taken , uh, to try to get their arms around this. Um, you know, as I , as you know, I'm always optimistic and I see people putting aside , um, what might be, you know, economic pursuits by canceling , traveling, canceling meetings, closing , um, factories to see if we might get the medical and scientific community. Um , we might be able to get the medical and scientific communities and time to , uh, to address us and tell us a little bit what is it that we're dealing with. Um, and so I think there's a , my lay understanding is that there's many clinical and medical reasons to be cautious and to, to not try to rush through this and say, gosh, it's , it's over and, you know, prepare for the worst and hope for the bus.

Speaker 2 3:21

Okay . And again, you've been around a lot of this and , and you and I are of similar age. So we go back through SARS , we go back through mirrors. Um, my wife and son are in the medical , um , field and they say it is very serious like you just said, but they also said it's the flu and the Corona virus has been around for coronaviruses have been around for thousands of years. Um, what do you see as far as how this is impacting us economically and without being crass? How much hype is involved with this? Is this like following a hurricane, which sometimes we get

Speaker 3 3:55

over-hyped and I think it's different than our hurricane. Um , we've talked on the show about the supply chains being global in nature. Um , couple of guests on that are actually experts in South China. And remember China spend decades building up the capacity to produce , um, to S to manufacture and to source raw goods. Um, and also we're going to have bill Michaels . I'm talking about supply chain in North America. Um , so when a GM plant in [inaudible] China , uh, halts production, there is a ripple effect , uh , that will affect us here. Uh, the, the thing that I think is different is that , um, you know, in a recession , um, there's , uh , cash goes to the sideline price of products drop, production drops. Um, we get ourselves out of the , the recession by , um, spending again. Um, this one could be a little different in that we're going to be out of product , uh, if this continues at any depth or any duration. Um, now we're recording this today on March 2nd, there has been some positive news out of China that is reflected in some of the stock indexes. Um, but , um, I would caution against things is going to be a typical V recovery. Um, if it is great , um, you know, if it's not , um, we should be prepared to , uh, ride that out. Um , so that's my understanding of the on the medical side, you know, on the, you know , financial uncertainty, that kind of goes hand in hand with the , uh , political world. Uh, the stock market does not like uncertainty. Um, my personal view is that the stock market has been , uh , looking for some reason to correct that. It has been pretty frothy. Uh , it has been somewhat priced to perfection and that , uh , the Corona virus really kind of said, you know, that's it. We're gonna pull back and we saw 11, 12% pullback in the major indexes , uh, last week. Um, so, so you would have to take a note of is a couple of the folks that both from the medical clinical side of things and from the , uh , financial world saying that they think that a cure either in the form of an antiviral that might , um , lessen the impacts of the infections or indeed a vaccine , um , might be the ultimate exit. Um, and I thought it was a little ironic that in these political times it was places like Giliad sciences , uh, coming to the fore with perhaps the best chance for some of these drugs. At the same times they're , they're being pounded , um, as , uh , you know, being pariahs on society. Not to say they can't, you know, not, not to say they can't be, be , uh , uh, be , um, be both.

Speaker 2 7:12

Right. Right. So , so would you, would you subscribe to the idea though that the, the economy , uh , the economies mechanisms are strong, but the , um, the situation has tripped up the markets and then tripped up the , uh, or the structure of the economy is still strong. It's just this is an event,

Speaker 3 7:30

well, we don't know. We don't know how long it lasts or how broad it goes. Um, if, if it goes long enough and broadly enough , uh, where economic decisions start getting made about, do we have to relocate that plant from a particular area in, bring it into a completely different continent? Um , that is going to be a , um, a very longterm implication. Um, and it may, you know, spur some preventive policy about where our infrastructure investments , um, need to go. Um , but I think, you know, Brian , you're kind of nibbling around the edges of that this heightened partisan , uh , political times. You almost have people pulling for a bad response from the administration. Um, I S I was frankly disgusted at some of the leaders who I should not call them leaders , uh , running to the microphone to , um , chastise the administration before we knew anything. Um, and, and that they're , you know, that there are political reasons for a go slow , um, as well as, as a , uh, medical. Um, so I think that we, we need to treat this for what it is. It's a , um, medical critical , uh , public health matter , um, that all of this is intertwined with a global economy and that we need to try to get back to fact-based reporting. Um, although I admit that when I'm reading news sources, I'm always understanding their filter, who they're trying to make look good, who they're trying to make look bad, who they're trying to make villains, who they're trying to make heroes of when we just need to know the scientific facts. Yeah. I will tell you, we , we, we to help plot a great scientist in the United States of America. I've had occasion to speak to a couple of them and they , they believe that our policy responses is moving in the right direction. That's good. I think you would have been surprised. I know you well enough. I think you would have been surprised if it hadn't gone political this early, but there was a ,

Speaker 2 9:58

um , there was , uh , an op ed piece in, in the New York times yesterday or maybe the day before yesterday. Um, they wanted to label this the Trump virus, which I thought was way out of line , um, that, that starts to politically , uh , politicize it and weaponize this right away. Um, is that an example of what you're talking about? H ow's, how quickly this happened?

Speaker 3 10:21

Yeah, that's, that's, that's an extreme. And , um, you know, look, the Corona virus killed the stock market, right? Um, we can see that , um, you know, will the stock Murray come back and it seems to me that the democratic national committee establishment is trying to kill off their most electable candidates these days. Um, that may be , um, more uncontrollable , uh, you know, over the past , uh , just few hours. Um, you know, Pete, a Buddha judge , um , has withdrawn from the race. Um, and now Amy Klobuchar. Well . Yeah , I was going to ask you before this started, you know , have you voted yet? Did D , do you do an absent absentee vote or an absentee ballot? I voted, I voted if a Michigan primary is next week, March 10th. Um, I did vote in that primary. Um, I did cast a vote for Tulsa. You ever voted? I voted my conscience. Um , I like her view of about not getting engaged in endless Wars. Um, when she first got in the race, I thought this is someone running for second place. Um, you know, it'd be the vice president. I'm somewhat partial to Polynesian people, as you well know, but I'm just, I just shouldn't get joke about that, but it's true. Um , but for folks out there, it's a wife, so it's okay. Uh , yeah. Uh, I, I think that, you know, if you look at who's left on the Democrat side and you had to say, look, you know, straight up one of those versus Tulsa, you have heard, I, you know, I suspect Tulsa would do rather well if not get , um, uh , a majority. Um, but it seems like the, the , uh, the Democrats right now are trying to take the worst of their 2016 playbook and the worst of the , uh, Republican's 2016 playbook and put them together. Um, w w w what I mean by that is that you have a , uh , a populous candidate in Bernie Sanders who appears to be hated by the democratic national committee establishment about as much as they love Donald Trump. It's close. Yeah. It's , it's a match up . And I just, I look at this with astonishment to say, look, is this the best you can do? Let's organize to nominate a guy well into his seventies with a history of dumb and unfruitful statements, including in recent days that he was arrested trying to see Nelson Mandela who has a history of making racist comments, who has boundary issues with women who still has unaddressed , uh , Ukrainian corruption matters. And he's now seen as the last chance for the democratic establishment to quote, stop Bernie. And what was the pivotal event? He won the primary in a state South Carolina that is going to vote Republican in 2020. And I stepped back. I , I'm , I'm just astounded. Like , really that's your answer. And that's why, and you had so many good people early on that were just , um, uh , eliminated now and now you've got Sanders , um, who's kind of the, the, the last paragraph of the long memo that's been written to the DNC establishment. This is, Hey, we don't like your establishment candidates. And, and you know, Senator Sanders, who I think is a genuine, authentic guy and a guy that I supported a lot in , in 16, I think that his candidacy, it's really, it's a function of the primary process and the Trump presidency and the utter tone deafness of the Democrats. Alex Sanders made a much better candidate in 2016 when we needed to have a , uh , disruptive election. Um, I think he had a posture then of being more conciliatory and , and saying, let's, let's , uh , stake out a policy position and let's work to the best outcome we can get. Um, haven't heard him saying that. And as much as he's, you know, making a pitch for , um, uh , you know, a, an extreme position or nothing would kind of reminds me of the tea party. And, and that didn't work out all that well. Um, so who knows that come this fall, we may have the aforementioned or for to describe Joe Biden.

Speaker 4 15:49

Oh , okay .

Speaker 3 15:50

It has got many issues and Lord knows what he's going to say during the , the campaign. That's true. I'm running against Donald Trump and uncommon president Trump who has many of those same issues and massive, you know , personal flaws where people want an off ramp and [inaudible] are they going to trade one for the other? I guess that remains to be seen. Or now we have a, or potentially a Senator Sanders who , um, is advocating , um, a much larger commitment to , uh , to what some people would view as , um , a more , uh , um, extremist versus a , um, a more, a more populist , uh , type of an appeal. Yeah . Um , yeah .

Speaker 2 16:43

So at the end, at the end of the day, after 2016 though, the Democrats are left with an old 70 some year old guy, whether it's Sanders or it's a Biden. And I've been wanting to ask you this for a while. We haven't, we haven't talked in a couple of weeks, but , um , I really wanted to ask you, do you think it's odd that the Democrats set up their primary systems such that , uh, the first two primaries or caucuses out of the gate , uh, are really go to a light , a wider audience, and it really wagged a lot of the diversity out of the , uh, democratic , um , field , uh , and now and then not allowing those people to have any kind of leveraged or raise money after that. It seems like there's an inherent flaw in a party that really wants to try to be inclusive. Do you see it that way at all? I , um ,

Speaker 4 17:34

Hmm .

Speaker 3 17:34

Wouldn't know how to, to characterize that , um, that they have to sequence the primaries in some way.

Speaker 2 17:44

Well , I think it's , it's in their constitution, so I know why they do it. But boy, this year Gabbert, you know, the person you mentioned , um, Castro , uh, every, every young diverse candidate was left in the lurch because they went to Iowa and Vermont first, which really, they really didn't have a prayer of coming up big anyway.

Speaker 3 18:03

Yeah. Well , uh , Gabard was running really well in New Hampshire for some time and then she was , um , not in some of the debates , um , wasn't called on in some of the debates, you know, so there , uh, you know, you still got appealed to the whole country no matter who you appeal to first. And you know, what we're looking at right now is , um, I think that despite how well this president has done on trade , um, on the military, you know, we have had no new Wars. NATO's paying more. We've had a modernized military. Um, I think you look at the personal flaws. Uh, you know, people I believe want an off ramp , uh, you know , seriously do we need four more years of 320 million people cringing, looking over their shoulders and saying, what's he going to do next? Yeah , yeah. And, and I believe, and by the way, political prognostications is a , uh , low percentage game . Sure . Um, as demonstrated by my vote. But , um, that's uh , that's another matter. No , I do believe that if they, if this goes down to the wire where it's going to be either , um, you know, Biden or Sanders and I suppose it could be , um, mayor Bloomberg, I suppose it could be Senator Warren as well. And again, I thought Warren was running a really good campaign and really the campaign that could be Trump, but

Speaker 2 19:43

we'll go back to that for a minute. What do you think happened to her along the way? Cause you , you haven't been a supporter of hers in the past, but I've seen you go a little bit colder. What do you think happened with her campaign that , uh, that you see at this point?

Speaker 3 19:56

Well, I don't think it was as much her campaign as it was, the conditions on the ground that, that I, I liked what she did because , uh , she stayed on policy and where you may not like all of her policies, but she's starts with an idea and they are nominally sensible. Um, and you know, I could see her in a debate against Donald Trump and Trump, you know, insults her and calls her name and whatever. And she says, well, you know, I'm not going to address that. Let's talk about student debt. Here's my plan. What's yours? And she says, let's talk about , uh, making the, the economy more fair. Here's my plan. What's yours? Um, that's the kind of campaign that I think in a general election , uh, would be very appealing. Um, if she picked the right , uh , VP and she made a pivot to knock vilifying business as much, I thought she, that people would look at her and go, you know, there's the off ramp we're looking for. Yeah , she's not going to mess up what we've got. And you know, she's got ideas and you know, she's not, we're not going to be down in the muck. Yeah . And Brenda , I say this. So right now, if I was going to forecast anything, I'd say that the coat tails for Bernie Sanders are very short. And in that the seats that the Democrats won in 2018 , um , in districts that Trump won in 2016 , um, Sanders is going to be , um , uh , an Advil or a boat anchor there. And those districts will probably go Republican.

Speaker 2 21:50

You're saying in the house? In the house. Really. So, so you say, and I'm sorry if this cutoff before, but you're saying that the Democrats are in grave danger of losing the house this fall. I think it's almost an assured thing really. So you think there's down ticket a carnage even if it's not Sanders or if it's Sanders or Biden as they're less with one or the other or no,

Speaker 3 22:10

or Bloomberg . It's, it's uh, we don't know enough about Bloomberg. They, they tore him up in the debate. Yeah . And he, he did not do well. I will say that I think we are past the age of television commercials , uh, defining a presidency and sweeping someone to victory that might've worked in 1960 but nobody's watching TV today. Nobody's watching TV on schedule anymore. Right. Look at , look at, look at what the Clinton campaign spent in 2016 , um, versus what the Trump campaign spent and Clinton lost. Yeah. Okay. Good point. And, and again , uh , Trump didn't spend in the States that, you know , California, New York, and he knew he was going to law lose . And there , there's some school of thought that that's where the popular vote went. Uh , but I , I think that if Sanders is elected, he's probably gonna end up with a Republican house and Republican Senate. If Trump wins, he will probably end up with a Republican house and a Republican Senate. Really ? Um, uh , Oh. If Trump, Trump will carry the , um, uh, his coattails are strong and it'll be more of a turnout election and the people that would turn off the Trump will for Trump will turn out to vote Republican for Congress, and it's more likely to be a low turnout. Um, for whomever the Democrat is, which will imperil that , um, a house majority. Um , now I would say Biden, I will be shocked if he's elected president. Um, there's far too much attack surface and I just don't see him being mentally agile , uh , enough to get through this , uh , despite all the favorable media coverage that he's going to get. I'm sure. Yeah , I understand that. And I also agree with you on that. I'm not sure why, but he doesn't seem as sharp and strong as he did even four years ago. Right. And he's, and he's always had issues with , uh , things like the , uh , English language and speaking the truth. And I'm not saying colossally idiotic things. Um, I mean, you know, come on that they've tried to paper it over by saying, Oh, it's, he's gaffes . Well , um, at what point does a gaff become stupidity? I dunno, but it's someplace, you know , here's the things we wrapped this up. Here's my concern for the country. And I think the bigger question is this, is that after the election, how will people behave? And we saw and we've had to witness three and a half years of an incredible string of juvenile bad behavior and power abuses by people that opposed this president. Yeah . The moment the election was over and certainly at the inauguration we saw cities starting to burn. Yeah. It's , it's a it . And we saw the president start to glow. So, so what I mean by the behavior, I mean by the winners and by the list . I see. And what, there was a day when after the election that, you know , after the concession call was made that um, the losing candidate would say, you know, we'd like to see us support our president cause we're all Americans. And what did we hear from large parts of America? Well, I don't have a president, not my president. Well we're going to impeach him. Yeah. Right, exactly. Yeah. Literally the day you guys . So what if Senator Sanders becomes the 46th president of the United States? What's the message to America at that time? Since so much of his campaign now has focused on tearing things down and attacking people. That's how are people going to behave if he wins it . Similarly, how are some of the um, um, you know, very hardcore Trump supporters going to react to a Sanders presidency and then, you know, similarly with Joe Biden, what if for Joe Biden to win the presidency, what kind of a campaign would he have to run and who support would he need to obtain? And could he be a unifying factor? And this kind of to bring this full circle. I think when the Democrats lost voted judge and Clovis char, they lost their last two voices of moderation and reason. And I mean , I can really easily see either a club char or a booted edge , um, you know, at the election saying, okay , the elections behind us and I'm here for all Americans and people believe in it. And I need to ask you this, but I need to ask you this and I know , I know you don't like to make these predictions outright, but everybody loves hearing your opinion on this. What do you see as a good ticket for that, for the Democrats? And does it include those two or is it somebody else altogether different? As a vice president is what I'm saying a Sanders is I'm going to have to bring in somebody from more of the center of the party. Um , the good news, he's so far over on the edge that pretty much that includes everybody or their neighbor . Um, so , uh , I , and I also think he needs , uh , somebody from, you know , the upper Midwest , uh, to be on that tip . So why Elizabeth Warren and make a great VP for him. Um, I named Colby char would make Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, very competitive. Um, we have very good , uh, governor and her first term in the state of Michigan and Gretchen Whitmer probably a little early for her, but she's really handling the job well , uh, in the these early stages. Um , I don't really see her on that same ticket with , uh , with a Bernie Sanders. Uh , that's always a possibility. I mean, the guy, look , this is a guy that just doesn't get rattled. He's the voice of reason. He's the correct age. Yeah . Um, he's, he's also been hypercritical of , uh, Senator Sanders and that would be I think a headwind there. Yeah. Um, Biden clearly has to pick somebody much younger and the good news there is that his age pretty much means everybody. And , and uh , I think that a, a woman would be a great choice for him. Um, although given his , uh , issues , uh , with behavior around women, I, I don't know who they could pick yeah . At this point, but I think , uh, you know, Biden going to do okay in Pennsylvania, how he does in Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota , uh, I do believe remains to be seen. I don't know. I don't see a Biden Sanders ticket. Yeah. You're talking about, you're talking about the total age of probably 150 .

Speaker 2 30:00

No , I don't know if we're getting into that territory where I'm , when, when FDR picked Truman, everybody knew whoever he picked was going to be the president. I mean, Truman, FDR wasn't old, but he was so sick and everybody knew this was going to happen. But you don't see that here. Do you like pick somebody because you guys are all in your upper seventies, pushing 80.

Speaker 3 30:17

Well, people are living longer these days. My , my Quip gene is saying there's a lot of people on both sides of the aisle that are kind of liking a president Pence.

Speaker 2 30:32

But do me a favor and do all of all of the listeners a favor and after a super Tuesday, which is tomorrow , um, let's do a week from now and do this again because , uh, I , we've gotten a lot of feedback from our listeners that really like when , when you go off like this, but we just have to make sure everybody knows it's not the common bridge,

Speaker 3 30:50

right ? Look , the common bridge was established because partisan party politics , um, has probably outlived its shelf life as a means of addressing the issues of the day and seizing the opportunities that this great country has before us. And we do want to focus on real information, real policies, irrespective of it as a D, N , R N I a G or a whatever , uh, next to the author of that , um, of that policy. Um, so, you know, these little side trips into the political world are fun, but we , we have to think about what does our country look like post election and, you know, what are some of the problems that we think will get addressed? What are those we think will be underdressed depending on the , uh, result and , and what opportunities could be seized , um, you know, based on the results of those things. Um, I , I personally do not believe that any of the candidates we see from either of the two major parties , um, is our best answer. Uh, certainly out of the 320 million people in the United States of America, we can do better , uh , both in terms of the people , uh, and in their behavior and carrying out their duties , um , to lead the country.

Speaker 2 32:33

Fair enough. And again, I apologize for jumping in and finding you this time and making you a comment on this. But like I say, the , the listening audience really likes it. So , um, thanks for doing this with us. Hey, I'm coming to Michigan. I know where to find you . Alright . Take care of it. Alright , thanks. So you have been listening to Richard healthy's common bridge podcast recording and post-production provided by stunt three multimedia. All rights are reserved by Richard helpy . For more information, visit Richard helpy.com .