David DiSalvo, writing for Forbes, observed the buying and selling of N95 marks. The fact is, there are millions of masks and PPE already in the USA but they are being sold to foreign buyers on a daily basis. The problem stems from the need of American states and hospitals to show “proof of funds” even as prices are steadily rising. Other countries have cracked down on selling this gear out of country. The United States has not. Millions of masks are leaving this country every day. This is why the Federal Government needs to step in and why not doing so is endangering our doctors and nurses, our citizens and ultimately our economy and national security.
3M is an American company making n95 masks. It seems to me that they and their brokers should be compelled by our Federal Government to sell domestically to American hospitals and states before allowing them to offer sales overseas. It’s been reported that companies have ramped up their production. But what good does it do to America if the increased production all gets sold almost entirely to foreign countries?
Please read the whole article when you can. DiSalvo is a very good compelling writer. You will be angry as hell when you’re done/
I Spent A Day In The Coronavirus-Driven Feeding Frenzy Of N95 Mask Sellers And Buyers And This Is What I Learned
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When contacting potential buyers, Remington (the broker) needs two things to secure a deal with a seller: a letter of intent to purchase and proof of funds.
“If you are working with a seller who has masks but you can’t quickly show proof of funds, someone else is going to buy them,” he told me.
And I watched that happen repeatedly throughout the day. Buyers from state procurement departments and hospital systems expressed desperate need for masks, but the deals bogged down when it came to providing proof that they could commit and follow through. In the meantime, another buyer provided proof of funds and the masks were gone, sometimes within the hour.
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Remington received text updates from his network about ever-changing quantities of masks in Houston, New Jersey, Miami, Los Angeles and other U.S. cities, along with cities in Canada and the UK. I was astounded by the numbers of masks at these locations. At one point he received an update that 43 million masks were available in New Jersey, in the same time-frame that federal and state leaders were saying in press conferences that they were “scouring the globe” for masks. But the masks in New Jersey, along with many million more, didn’t go to any domestic buyer. Instead, according to the broker, they were all purchased by foreign buyers.
“Most of the masks are leaving the country,” he told me.
That is not the case in countries that have cracked down on exports, he added, but as of now the U.S. is allowing many types of medical supplies to leave the country even as states and hospital systems are expressing desperate need for masks and other PPE.
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Added to this, potential buyers trying to secure PPE for their medical personnel are often not empowered to make fast, high-dollar deals, no matter how desperately they’d like to close a deal and get masks to those in need. I listened to the range of emotions playing out in negotiations and it seemed to me that the domestic procurement process is simply unprepared to operate in this frenzied market. Individuals want to do the right thing, but the systems in which they operate are hamstrung by rules that weren’t created to approve enormous transactions in hours or less.
By the end of the day, roughly 280 million masks from warehouses around the U.S. had been purchased by foreign buyers and were earmarked to leave the country, according to the broker — and that was in one day.