The Trump Virus

NoCoPilot wrote:

All this talk about bailouts for every industry hit by the virus. I think that’s wrong headed. The only source, ultimately, is the taxpayers and so it only delays, not eliminates, the eventual reckoning.

I guess I’m turning into a Republican.

Lessons learned from 2008, anyone?

All any Democrat needs to do in November is play this clip on TV 15 times a day

It strikes me there will be one more fallout from the US economic collapse that nobody's talking about: treasury bills.

Once US T-bills are no longer the "safe investment" made by governments and major investors around the world, the US liquidity will be going in the toilet.  The US won't have ANY financial leverage anywhere in the world, ever again.  We'll be relegated to the pile of third world debtor nations, like Africa. The US won't be able to finance its deficit spending by selling T-bills, meaning the money machine is cut off. If the treasury tries to finance the debt by printing more money, inflation will roar through the economy faster than the coronavirus.

I just got back from a trip to the store for fresh fruits & vegetables, and printer paper.

Right now, everything's still open and operating normally. There is no toilet paper or paper towels anywhere, nor hand sanitizer, but aside from that no shortages.  People are being extra courteous. smiling, waving, traffic is extremely light and drivers are being unusually kind.  We're in kind of a nice bubble right now, where everybody is not stressed, essential goods are still available, nothing is broken down.

I don't expect this to last.

Our governor is talking about shuttering ALL non-essential businesses, not just the bars & restaurants & major manufacturers & entertainment venues.  If he does that, things will get tense fast.

Survivalists will begin to come out of the woodwork and break into stores, hijack delivery trucks, hold-up drivers for their cash.  That may be less than a week away, as the death toll surpasses 9,000 and a quarter million cases.

I'm as prepared as I can be. I have two weeks of food, enough paper goods, some cash, and a full tank of gas.

NoCoPilot wrote:

It strikes me there will be one more fallout from the US economic collapse that nobody's talking about: treasury bills..

I hope the economic collapse doesn't lead to an inability to mail Social Security checks. That could happen.

My SS check rides the briny waves of electrons - no postman required.

You know what I mean.  The US Treasury is at risk here, in a very real way.

ESPECIALLY if Mnuchin gets his $1T "stimulus package" to the CEOs and Wall Street bankers.

Warning signs in bold:

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Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin met with Senate Republicans behind closed doors Tuesday to present options for aid to airlines, hotels, casinos and small-to-medium-sized businesses.

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But in a sign that hard-fought negotiations are still to come, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat expressed some criticism of the proposal after its introduction and the process by which Senate Republicans came up with it, saying that the plan had "virtually no input from Democrats" and warning against corporate industry bailouts. It was drafted by Senate Republicans and the Trump administration, with no input from Democrats.

The $1 trillion emergency economic aid proposal ... would include direct payments to Americans under a certain income threshold, $200 billion in loans to airlines and distressed industry sectors.... The proposal also includes $300 billion for loans to small businesses, as well as private organizations. Sen. James Lankford, a Republican from Oklahoma, said the loan program would have a "much bigger impact" than direct payments. "I think that has the greatest bang for the buck to be able to keep people employed. A one-time check that comes to someone is not as significant as knowing my job is going to be there," Lankford said.

You can bet the "private organizations" will be churchs and other faith-based organizations, as well as Wall Street hedge fund managers, and the CEOs of major pharmaceutical corporations. And oh, New York real estate moguls.

Today's little ray of sunshine from Debbie Downer:

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Italy’s death toll from the coronavirus has surpassed China, with so many dead that soldiers were brought in to haul away coffins and health care workers said they stopped counting bodies. Officials said Thursday that 427 new deaths were recorded over just 24 hours, bringing the COVID-19 death toll to 3,403, nearly 200 more than China, where the virus originated.

This comes despite the fact that Italy has 41,035 confirmed cases — just over half as many as China. “Unfortunately we can’t contain the situation in Lombardy,” said Daniela Confalonieri, a nurse in Milan. “There’s a high level of contagion and we’re not even counting the dead anymore.”

“Look at the news that’s coming out of Italy and take note of what the situation is like,” she said. “It’s unimaginable.”

Italy handled their early response to the contagion exactly the same as the USA has.

In three weeks this'll be us.

Things will never go back to "normal."

All these companies that sent their workers home to telecommute?  They'll never work in the office again.  Telecommuting will be the new norm.  Workers will find they like it better, and companies will find it's a whole lot cheaper.  They'll end up selling off their expensive downtown real estate (at a fraction of its former value).

Which means the restaurant industry will be mostly dinners, not so much lunches.  And mostly take-out.  "Kitchens" instead of "diners."

"Remote learning" will be the norm.

Our reliance on the internet for EVERYTHING means it is literally the backbone of the economy.  Lord help us if the Russians learn how to disrupt it.

The gap between Third World nations and First World nations will widen -- and may not be the nations you expect.

Private insurance may become of thing of the past.  The only way to weather pandemics will be to pool everybody.

The pandemic is here to stay:

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As long as someone in the world has the virus, breakouts can and will keep recurring without stringent controls to contain them. In a report yesterday, researchers at Imperial College London proposed a way of doing this: impose more extreme social distancing measures every time admissions to intensive care units (ICUs) start to spike, and relax them each time admissions fall.  Under this model, the researchers conclude, social distancing and school closures would need to be in force some two-thirds of the time—roughly two months on and one month off.   That means the pandemic [will] last, at a low level, until either enough people have had Covid-19 to leave most immune (assuming immunity lasts for years, which we don’t know) or there’s a vaccine, which will take at least 18 months (if it works at all).

GOOD News About COVID-19:

I was listening to a panel discussion on KUOW, the local university channel, and the moderator asked, "Doesn't anybody have anything GOOD to say about the pandemic?"

A guest expert piped up, "Yes! This situation we're in has made science respectable again. For the past several years there's been widespread distrust of scientists and their dark predictions about climate change and pesticide buildups and plastic in the oceans. This epidemic is showing that, yes, if we don't pay attention BAD THINGS CAN HAPPEN, and if you think COVID-19 is bad just wait until you see global sea level start rising dramatically.. This pandemic has finally, hopefully, shut up the climate deniers and science deniers and overall sceptics about vaccines and such.

It might seem bad now, but it MIGHT JUST SAVE HUMANITY."

"Yeah? Well YOU'RE a terrible president!"

NoCoPilot wrote:

You can bet the "private organizations" will be churchs and other faith-based organizations, as well as Wall Street hedge fund managers, and the CEOs of major pharmaceutical corporations.  And oh, New York real estate moguls.

Stephen Mnuchin wrote:

Americans need cash now, and the president wants to get cash now. And I mean now in the next two weeks.

How much "cash" does the president expect to get?

Amy Goodman wrote:

Mnuchin called the pandemic “worse than 9/11” for the airline industry and called for a $50 billion bailout. This comes as the Democrat-led House passed a multibillion-dollar package Monday that significantly weakened paid sick leave measures it tried to enact days earlier. The Families First Coronavirus Response Act passed the House Monday evening after changes were made that were called “technical corrections.” The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that, quote, “Democratic aides were alarmed by the changes, which were passed with no objections because House lawmakers are away from Washington [on recess]. The changes weren’t shown to most lawmakers before the vote.”

Why is fucking Congress on a fucking recess during a global crisis? JFC!

Ro Khanna wrote:

The problem is that we’re negotiating with Trump and McConnell to get anything done. I do believe, though, that we have a lot of leverage. I mean, this president needs a deal. The economy is on the verge of a real crisis.

Fuck you, Ro.  The Dow closed at 19,173.98 today.  

That's down 35.12% from the high, just five weeks ago on February 12 of 29,551.42.  How much farther does it have to fall before the economy is "in a real crisis"?

A stark warning from MIT

And it's already a week old.

A sound technician for MSNBC died today of COVID-19.  He was diagnosed only early this week, but apparently had some underlying health issues that caused the virus to take him out very quickly.

Both Andrea Mitchell and Rachel Maddow broke down on-air while reporting his death.  He was very beloved by co-workers.
https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/watch/longtime-nbc-news-employee-dies-after-testing-positive-for-coronavirus-81016901809
https://www.msnbc.com/andrea-mitchell-reports/watch/andrea-mitchell-chokes-up-remembering-larry-edgeworth-who-died-from-covid-19-81028677634
https://twitter.com/TroyDonte/status/1241190083996389376

Why COVID-19 is so deadly to humans:

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Bats are the only mammal that can fly, allowing them to spread in large numbers from one community over a wide area, scientists say. This means they can harbor a large number of pathogens, or diseases. Flying also requires a tremendous amount of [energy] for bats, which has caused their immune systems to become very specialized.

"When they fly they have a peak body temperature that mimics a fever," said Andrew Cunningham, Professor of Wildlife Epidemiology at the Zoological Society of London. "It happens at least twice a day with bats -- when they fly out to feed and then they return to roost. And so the pathogens that have evolved in bats have evolved to withstand these peaks of body temperature."

Cunningham said this poses a potential problem when these diseases cross into another species. In humans, for example, a fever is a defense mechanism designed to raise the body temperature to kill a virus. A virus that has evolved in a bat will probably not be affected by a higher body temperature, he warned.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/19/health/coronavirus-human-actions-intl/index.html

Some industries may never come back. Giving cash infusions to them right now would be flushing money down the toilet.

Banks and the auto industry will recover. Most manufacturing in fact will survive, with a little bridge help.

The airline industry and the restaurant industry may not recover, or will be considerably differently-focussed in the new reality. No sense trying to maintain "business-as-usual," those days are now gone forever.

The private health insurance industry is totally dead. Time to give it a decent burial.

This Pandemic Could Be An Opportunity For Change in the U.S.

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The United States, where all 50 states have confirmed cases, however, is more susceptible to the impact of this public health emergency than any other industrialised nation. If its leaders do not take swift action and implement fundamental reforms, the pandemic will cause more devastation there than it already did in Europe.

European nations are struggling to respond to the crisis despite having relatively well-functioning social security systems and universal health coverage. The US, however, has neither. Neoliberal policies implemented by consecutive administrations, which prioritise maximisation of profit for corporations and the rich over the wellbeing of ordinary citizens, have left the country completely unprepared to tackle a health crisis of this scale.

45,000 Americans are dying each year because they do not have health coverage. 30 million people are living without medical insurance and a whopping 137 million are facing financial hardships due to medical debt. One in four US workers - more than 32 million - is not entitled to paid sick days.

As COVID-19 rapidly spreads across the country, these pre-existing weaknesses put the US on course for an unprecedented socioeconomic catastrophe.

However, there is opportunity in crisis. As it exposes the nation's flaws, weaknesses and moral blind spots like never before, the coronavirus pandemic can make Americans of all walks of life realise that neoliberal policies that value profit over human life are a threat to national security. This realisation can in turn pressure the US leadership to implement the necessary reforms to ensure all Americans have social security, comprehensive labour rights and access to adequate healthcare.

Policy proposals that would have been swiftly dismissed as fringe left-wing fantasies merely a few weeks ago are now being discussed in the mainstream. This shows that long before reaching its devastating peak, the coronavirus pandemic has already changed US politics.

And there is no reason for the change to stop here. The coronavirus pandemic could be the wake-up call the US has long been waiting for.

Avi Schiffmann has added a column to the spreadsheet, showing daily percentage changes. Very useful in tracking the explosive growth.

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There is something about pandemics that cause panicked people to empty their minds along with supermarket shelves.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/22/world/doomsday-prophets-coronavirus-blake/index.html

NoCoPilot wrote:

GOOD News About COVID-19:

School shootings are down.

Great. We've been ordered to "shelter-in-place."

NoCoPilot wrote:

[How much "cash" does the president expect to get?

Apparently, quite a lot.  There oughta be a law.

NoCoPilot wrote:

Some industries may never come back.  Giving cash infusions to them right now would be flushing money down the toilet.

I wish they wouldn't call the massive giveaway "a rescue."  They're not rescuing anybody.  They're still going to have to go through business failure.

This stimulus package just delays the inevitable and puts an additional burden on the already-staggering economy.

Even another massive "quantitative easing" isn't  having any effect.  Government officials still have no realization how big this thing is, none of them being old enough (like me) to have lived through the Great Depression.

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In other words, the Fed is doing everything it takes to prevent a major credit crisis.

The word "takes" is wrong here.