New York City has a shortage of ventilators or not… Figures lie and liars figure. Here is a story about how New York sold their stockpile of ventilators years ago.
https://www.propublica.org/article/how-new-york-city-emergency-ventilator-stockpile-ended-up-on-the-auction-block
I have a different take on stockpiling. It works… sometimes. It all depends on what and how the item is stockpiled.
In the mid seventies a group of us took a canoe trip down the Rio Grande. Some of the culinary delights we feasted on during the trip were C-Rats.
For the uninformed C-Rats were the field rations issued to U.S. troops during WWII. C-Rats were issued from 1938 on to 1958 when they were replaced by the Meal Combat Individual (MCI). Here is a picture of a C-Rat.
If one is interested in getting laid after dinner, then feeding your date C-Rats is probably not the way to go. But on the banks of the Rio Grande a C-Rat put down in the 1940’s wasn’t bad.
As a cop, I had more than a passing interest in shooting. A limiting factor was having sufficient quantities of ammunition. Often as not the search for cheap ammunition ended up with military surplus. It might have been old but it worked just fine.
Some things stand the test of time. Others do not. The first IPhone was sold in 2007. State of the art then, paper weight now.
In the 1980’s Reagan proposed recommissioning several Iowa class battleships. My brother-in-law was involved in the refit.
He related the following story. They brought a battleship into dry dock in San Diego. Once the water drained away ship yard workers were amazed. Many of the hull plates had rusted through. Others were just barely attached. Hulls of that era were riveted.
This brought up the first problem. The navy didn’t possess any rivets. Records indicated at the end of the war the navy sold tons of unused rivets for pennies on the dollar.
The ship building industry moved on. Rivets were no longer used. The builders could find rivets but none of them were compatible with the hull plates on the battleships. The navy was faced with the challenge of reviving a manufacturing chain to make the correct rivets. The cost was no where near the original pennies on the dollar cost. They got it done.
The next challenge was that there were no ship builders that had a cadre of skilled riveters. A bridge company whose riveters were used to working “high steel” got the contract. They found themselves six stories below ground.
As the program continued the rehab crew found that modern technology couldn’t replace some shipboard systems. Enter octogenarian retired navy specialists who came on board to teach the youngsters how stuff worked. These old guys weren’t interested in being contractors…they wanted their old ranks and ratings back.
The battleships were redeployed for a while. They are all retired now.
I have no medical expertise. I seem to recall that years ago short term use of a respirator was a life saver. However, patients subjected to long term use of a respirator didn’t survive. The suspicion was that the extended use of a respirator was a contributing factor. That may no longer be the case due to advances in technology. The sale of out dated ventilators that had not been properly maintained is not necessarily a bad thing.
The whining and crying by democrat mayors and governors is nothing more than a misdirection play. The Feds are pretty worthless when it comes to feet on the ground during a crisis. Ask the politicians in Florida. You don’t hear them griping.
Hurricanes have taught Floridians a valuable lesson. The Feds are good at bringing “stuff”. They don’t know how to operate the stuff. They have no idea where to put it. If the locals ask for it the Feds will damn sure try to bring it.
Florida devotes their resources to making sure Federal Stuff goes where it is needed. They also send the Feds on their way, so that they don’t hang around and screw things up.
The supposed crisis is just the attempt of democrats to establish an excuse for why they shouldn’t be held responsible for what was their job.