POLL: Worst-Handled Crises of This Millennium

[What Would Jesus Do?]

I've picked what seem to me to be 10 of the worst crises in this millennium, so far. Some have dates when they happened or when they started. Some are ongoing and have been with us for most of this millennium if not longer.

In some cases I could have broken down the crisis to let people vote on them by political party. For example, the Iraq War and the Great Recession were overseen by both R and D administrations. And some might think one party did badly enough to rate them among the worst, but feel differently about the other party's handling of that crisis. But I didn't - favoring, instead, listing more separate crises.

Are those all the crises this millennium? Hardly. Are they all truly crises? Up to you. Poll-maker's choice. Feel free to start your own poll if you want different choices. Or mention the crises you think should have been included and maybe I'll do another poll.

 

[GlenEllynHawk]

The pandemic and nothing else is even close.

The lockdowns were not only the worst handling of a crisis in this millennium, but probably the single biggest economic and medical blunder in the entire history of humankind.

 

[William Bonney]

Cultural Marxisms infiltration of all the institutions of America.

 

[FAUlty Gator]

I've picked what seem to me to be 10 of the worst crises in this millennium, so far. Some have dates when they happened or when they started. Some are ongoing and have been with us for most of this millennium if not longer.

In some cases I could have broken down the crisis to let people vote on them by political party. For example, the Iraq War and the Great Recession were overseen by both R and D administrations. And some might think one party did badly enough to rate them among the worst, but feel differently about the other party's handling of that crisis. But I didn't - favoring, instead, listing more separate crises.

Are those all the crises this millennium? Hardly. Are they all truly crises? Up to you. Poll-maker's choice. Feel free to start your own poll if you want different choices. Or mention the crises you think should have been included and maybe I'll do another poll.

Gulf Oil Spill. The lies and disinformation that came out of the Obama White House was ridiculous. Not to mention the doctoring of a scientific report, in order to ram through a drilling moratorium.

 

[Whiskeydeltadeltatango]

The pandemic and nothing else is even close.

The lockdowns were not only the worst handling of a crisis in this millennium, but probably the single biggest economic and medical blunder in the entire history of humankind.

Jesus dude, hyperbole much?

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

Gulf Oil Spill. The lies and disinformation that came out of the Obama White House was ridiculous. Not to mention the doctoring of a scientific report, in order to ram through a drilling moratorium.

I agree the Gulf Oil spill was a big and poorly-handled crisis.

I'm rather surprised that you didn't vote for the Climate Change/Environment option, if you feel that way.

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

The pandemic and nothing else is even close.

The lockdowns were not only the worst handling of a crisis in this millennium, but probably the single biggest economic and medical blunder in the entire history of humankind.

Good example of how people can pick the same option for different reasons. I agree that this is one of the worst-handled crises - but not because the lockdowns were too aggressive.

 

[GlenEllynHawk]

Jesus dude, hyperbole much?

Remember, butchers like Mao Tse-Tung, Stalin, Hitler, etc. weren't "blunders" since they were intentional.

Meanwhile, researchers at Stanford University have estimated the lockdowns will be responsible for the loss of 2.2 million life-years in the US in 2020 alone, with more yet ino coming years, and severe but not life-threatenng consequences for literally tens of millions more.

Can you name a bigger economic and medical blunder in history?

 

[UNIowaHawk]

None of those with years are that big of a deal to me including the COVID "pandemic". I think the handling has been very political, but not handled poorly overall. Same can be said with everything else on the list. The only one that needs to be handled better in my opinion is the immigration.

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

Cultural Marxisms infiltration of all the institutions of America.

You should get together with OiT and make your own poll. I'm sure we'd all enjoy that.

 

[BigDelHawk]

I've picked what seem to me to be 10 of the worst crises in this millennium, so far. Some have dates when they happened or when they started. Some are ongoing and have been with us for most of this millennium if not longer.

In some cases I could have broken down the crisis to let people vote on them by political party. For example, the Iraq War and the Great Recession were overseen by both R and D administrations. And some might think one party did badly enough to rate them among the worst, but feel differently about the other party's handling of that crisis. But I didn't - favoring, instead, listing more separate crises.

Are those all the crises this millennium? Hardly. Are they all truly crises? Up to you. Poll-maker's choice. Feel free to start your own poll if you want different choices. Or mention the crises you think should have been included and maybe I'll do another poll.

Yep, no political skew to that list? Just worthless propaganda.

 

[UNIowaHawk]

Where is Big Ten Football?

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

Remember, butchers like Mao Tse-Tung, Stalin, Hitler, etc. weren't "blunders" since they were intentional.

Meanwhile, researchers at Stanford University have estimated the lockdowns will be responsible for the loss of 2.2 million life-years in the US in 2020 alone, with more yet ino coming years, and severe but not life-threatenng consequences for literally tens of millions more.

Can you name a bigger economic and medical blunder in history?

I suggest people who are shaking their heads about this claim, head here for a good overview:

The COVID-19 shutdown will cost Americans millions of years of life

The national lockdown is responsible for at least 700,000 lost years of life every month, or about 1.5 million so far — already far surpassing the COVID-19 total

thehill.com

If you pay attention you will see this is a hardly-unbiased screed by the Hoover Institution that doesn't actually lay the blame on lockdowns - even if you accept their numbers, which maybe you shouldn't.

However, a case can be made that the haphazard lockdowns resulting from poor, inconsistent, uncoordinated government decisions and actions at all levels - especially at the top - have made things worse.

That's hardly an argument for no lockdowns - the outcome of which the Hoover folks seem to only see in terms of economic impact.

 

[UNIowaHawk]

The year 2000 is so Second Millennium OP

 

[Whiskeydeltadeltatango]

Remember, butchers like Mao Tse-Tung, Stalin, Hitler, etc. weren't "blunders" since they were intentional.

Meanwhile, researchers at Stanford University have estimated the lockdowns will be responsible for the loss of 2.2 million life-years in the US in 2020 alone, with more yet ino coming years, and severe but not life-threatenng consequences for literally tens of millions more.

Can you name a bigger economic and medical blunder in history?

O.... now we are doing "life years" thats a new place for thr goal post. How do you feel about the "estimated 12 billion in economic damage" from the sturgis rally?

 

[Hawk_4shur]

Remember, butchers like Mao Tse-Tung, Stalin, Hitler, etc. weren't "blunders" since they were intentional.

Meanwhile, researchers at Stanford University have estimated the lockdowns will be responsible for the loss of 2.2 million life-years in the US in 2020 alone, with more yet ino coming years, and severe but not life-threatenng consequences for literally tens of millions more.

Can you name a bigger economic and medical blunder in history?

Well, it's probably not fair to call it a "blunder". It was poorly executed, in part due to the populace resistance.

Loss of life-years? Probably true. (And, I'll bet that Stanford study is a page-turner!) It works out to 2.4 days per person if my math is right. But, I'm sure it didn't mean each and every person would lose that - it's talking about suicide primarily I suppose.

The Great Depression and the Great Recessions could certainly called blunders. The loss of life toll on those would be massive. And, don't forget the 70 million in the world that died in WWII.

This thread is depressing ...

 

[GlenEllynHawk]

I suggest people who are shaking their heads about this claim, head here for a good overview:

The COVID-19 shutdown will cost Americans millions of years of life

The national lockdown is responsible for at least 700,000 lost years of life every month, or about 1.5 million so far — already far surpassing the COVID-19 total

thehill.com

If you pay attention you will see this is a hardly-unbiased screed by the Hoover Institution that doesn't actually lay the blame on lockdowns - even if you accept their numbers, which maybe you shouldn't.

However, a case can be made that the haphazard lockdowns resulting from poor, inconsistent, uncoordinated government decisions and actions at all levels - especially at the top - have made things worse.

That's hardly an argument for no lockdowns - the outcome of which the Hoover folks seem to only see in terms of economic impact.

There'snothing in the article that suggests bias (and apparently nothing you can dispute).

And the Hoover folks list numerous medical casualties. That doesn't mean the economic ones don't exist. It only means the lockdowns poured salt in the virus wound.

FInally, top-down, one-size-fits-all central planning is always poor and inconcsistent. The epically disastrous lockdowns are just another example.

 

[GlenEllynHawk]

O.... now we are doing "life years" thats a new place for thr goal post. How do you feel about the "estimated 12 billion in economic damage" from the sturgis rally?

Life-years have long been a recognized measure in the scientific community. Not by you, of course. But by scientists.

 

[TJ8869]

The Cy-Hawk Trophy

 

[GlenEllynHawk]

Well, it's probably not fair to call it a "blunder". It was poorly executed, in part due to the populace resistance.

Loss of life-years? Probably true. (And, I'll bet that Stanford study is a page-turner!) It works out to 2.4 days per person if my math is right. But, I'm sure it didn't mean each and every person would lose that - it's talking about suicide primarily I suppose.

The Great Depression and the Great Recessions could certainly called blunders. The loss of life toll on those would be massive. And, don't forget the 70 million in the world that died in WWII.

This thread is depressing ...

Increased rates of suicide are certainly one component of the medical toll caused by the lockdowns, but far from the only one. Add increases in other social ills like drug overdoses, domestic violence, etc. to the list. But probably the most deadly were the bans on "non-essential" medical care.

And if the life toll caused by the Great Depression or Great Recession were significant, wouldn't the lockdowns that resulted in the steepest rate of economic contraction in history be even more significant?

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

There'snothing in the article that suggests bias (and apparently nothing you can dispute).

And the Hoover folks list numerous medical casualties. That doesn't mean the economic ones don't exist. It only means the lockdowns poured salt in the virus wound.

FInally, top-down, one-size-fits-all central planning is always poor and inconcsistent. The epically disastrous lockdowns are just another example.

To be useful (and not merely statistic-laden propaganda for right wing capitalism) they needed to compare the lockdown regimen we got - which was disastrously surreal - with a well-executed lockdown scheme - or, better yet, with a spread of well-implemented scenarios. Not with pre-lockdown health and economic measures. Because pre-lockdown results are the one thing we could not choose.

Nobody is challenging that the Nightmare in the White House oversaw an incompetent, corrupt, and ultimately deadly response to the pandemic. And the Hoover boys may have done a service by putting some numbers to that. If their numbers are honest and correct - which, considering the source is not something we should automatically assume. Might be, might not be.

But nowhere do they prove the case you seem to be taking away from their report - namely that the lockdowns have made things much worse or, alternatively, they are the real problem.

Is it possible for that to be true? Sure. But unlikely. And they didn't prove that.

Apologies if that isn't what you were saying. That's what it seemed you were saying to me.

 

[Titus Andronicus]

How can anyone evaluate the response to Covid-19 without knowing the ultimate outcome?

It's not like there is a guy named Osama Bin Laden who we can swear to track down until the end of time, then execute that exact plan over multiple presidential administrations. (I assume the overall success of our response to the 9/11 attacks was why it was not included separately in the poll.)

So far all we have seen are lots of contrasting political responses ... from multiple levels of government and from all sorts of corporate and private types of organizations. Additionally, every country in the world is coming up with multiple contrasting solutions ... And yet, there is a certain sameness to these responses, in conjunction with lots of finger-pointing and different word usages; nothing really creative or truly insightful from any quarter.

Everything at all levels and from everywhere is political in nature and for the most part these are shots-in-the-dark and hail-Mary sorts of responses.

We really do not have much of a handle on what really needs to be done at this point.

... and yet, there it is - designated by vote as the most ****ed-up response by our government of them all!

Of course it is confusing and ****ed up! How could it possibly be otherwise?

Everyone on the planet turned to "Government" for answers and for solutions! Unfortunately this means you dealing with career bureaucrats!

.....................................

From what I can see, the response from private industry has been somewhat ok. it appears that much of corporate America (and Corporate Europe) senses an opportunity and they are going for it.

 

[CAhawki]

Final season of GoT...

 

[h-hawk]

Without the lock downs, the pandemic would have been even worse and that would have shut down the US anyway. Most people would still not have ventured out with even more people sick and dyeing every day.

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

Without the lock downs, the pandemic would have been even worse and that would have shut down the US anyway. Most people would still not have ventured out with even more people sick and dyeing every day.

I should remember to do some tie-dyeing when I'm sick.

 

[LuciousBDragon]

Several come to mind:

- 2010 Iowa Hawkeye punt coverage vs Wisconsin
- 1999 Brandi Chastain & USWNT World Cup "debracle"
- 2006 Outback Bowl officiating crew
- 2014 Obama "tan suit" chaos
- 1962 weirdos tried to put some missiles and stuff on an island near us

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

Yep, no political skew to that list? Just worthless propaganda.

Which crises would you have subtracted and which would you have added to eliminate or balance the political skew you think you see?

I'm genuinely interested.

 

[Hawk_4shur]

And if the life toll caused by the Great Depression or Great Recession were significant, wouldn't the lockdowns that resulted in the steepest rate of economic contraction in history be even more significant?

I honestly don't know how to compare the Great Recession to the COVID lock down. But the Great Depression lasted for years. I'd have to say, without evidence, that the Great Depression took a greater toll on people due to the combined severity and longevity.

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

Several come to mind:

- 2010 Iowa Hawkeye punt coverage vs Wisconsin
- 1999 Brandi Chastain & USWNT World Cup "debracle"
- 2006 Outback Bowl officiating crew
- 2014 Obama "tan suit" chaos
- 1962 weirdos tried to put some missiles and stuff on an island near us

Funny. But the one actual crisis you included missed the "this millennium" mark by coming up on 40 years.

Good one for a last-millennium worst-handled crises list, though.

Then again, that one worked out OK. Not many on my list worked out OK - at the time. Some are more-or-less "better" by now. Some aren't.

 

[BeepBeepInMyJeep]

COVID-19 was easily the worst. He took some terrible advice. The chess behind it was something like this: if the economy has to shut down for a substantial amount of time, it will cost jobs, and Presidents in bad economies don't win re-election. By doing very limited and half-assed shut downs, the economic numbers wouldn't be nearly as bad and so they could damage control their way through the bad traditional economic metrics.

What they didn't consider is that Trump was never really "punished" in the polls for job losses, just as he's not receiving the political "benefit" of the rebound. It was seen as a large scale crisis, which on the net is typically a very good thing for an incumbent. We stuck with the guy in the Civil War, World War II, stuck with Bush through post 911 Afghanistan and Iraq, stuck with Obama through the recession and recovery. So a life-threatening crisis could have seen Trump cruise to re-election despite his history of divisiveness had he actually re-calibrated and let the health experts work to minimize the loss of life and slow the spread. When masks and shutdowns became an R/D issue, he lost an opportunity. If he goes on to lose, I'll argue that this is how he lost and never recovered, in May.

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

I find it mildly interesting that even though you can vote for up to 5 choices, the average voter only picked 3.

I wonder if that's just oversight or of those who picked fewer than 5 genuinely think some on the list were not badly mishandled.

So . . . the options with the fewest votes at the moment are

2008 - Great Recession (8/.0%)
Ongoing - Immigration/Refugees (12.0%)
2000 - Presidential Election/Recount (14.0%)

Do some of you think these weren't badly-handled crises?

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

The chess behind it was something like this: if the economy has to shut down for a substantial amount of time, it will cost jobs, and Presidents in bad economies don't win re-election.

I liked your overall assessment. I'm singling out this small part because I think it points out why Trump should not be President.

I think the evidence proves that this perspective is as far as he ever thinks about anything (unless it's how to make a profit for himself, family and friends). If he ever pays attention to more than that, all else is secondary.

 

[seminole97]

US meddling in other countries need its own category.

How many countries have we turned into hell holes?

Afghanistan?
Iraq?
Syria?
Libya?
Yemen?
Ukraine?

Low grade participation in wars from the Philippines to sub-Saharan African.

What a colossal waste.

 

[GlenEllynHawk]

I honestly don't know how to compare the Great Recession to the COVID lock down. But the Great Depression lasted for years. I'd have to say, without evidence, that the Great Depression took a greater toll on people due to the combined severity and longevity.

You don't think the effects of the lockdowns will last years?

 

[GlenEllynHawk]

Without the lock downs, the pandemic would have been even worse and that would have shut down the US anyway. Most people would still not have ventured out with even more people sick and dyeing every day.

You mean like what happened in Sweden?

 

[GlenEllynHawk]

To be useful (and not merely statistic-laden propaganda for right wing capitalism) they needed to compare the lockdown regimen we got - which was disastrously surreal - with a well-executed lockdown scheme - or, better yet, with a spread of well-implemented scenarios. Not with pre-lockdown health and economic measures. Because pre-lockdown results are the one thing we could not choose.

Nobody is challenging that the Nightmare in the White House oversaw an incompetent, corrupt, and ultimately deadly response to the pandemic. And the Hoover boys may have done a service by putting some numbers to that. If their numbers are honest and correct - which, considering the source is not something we should automatically assume. Might be, might not be.

But nowhere do they prove the case you seem to be taking away from their report - namely that the lockdowns have made things much worse or, alternatively, they are the real problem.

Is it possible for that to be true? Sure. But unlikely. And they didn't prove that.

Apologies if that isn't what you were saying. That's what it seemed you were saying to me.

I wasn't saying anything other than responses to your initial criticisms........which, I might add, you conveniently ignored.

BTW, the data presented in the article wasn't my evidence.......it was yours.

Strawman, perhaps?

 

[Hawk_4shur]

You don't think the effects of the lockdowns will last years?

The "effects"? Maybe, but the actual Great Depression actually lasted 3-4 years (however they pick that time frame), but I'm sure the "effects" lasted for many, many years after that.

 

[FormerlyCyberCy]

The "effects"? Maybe, but the actual Great Depression actually lasted 3-4 years (however they pick that time frame), but I'm sure the "effects" lasted for many, many years after that.

The Great Depression was from the stock market crash of Oct 1929 to WWII in late 1941.

 

[Hawk_4shur]

The Great Depression was from the stock market crash of Oct 1929 to WWII in late 1941.

I've seen several definitions of the timeline, including the one you mention. I've also seen Aug, 1929 - March, 1933. This is strange to me because this one says it begins before the Crash. Anyway, I used a shorter time frame.

 

[TrianglePlace]

If one would have turned out different (2000 election), 3 of the listed crises may not have happened.

Iraq War
Poorly handled Katrina response
2008 Recession