PLAYPEN: Covid-19 Everything Political

[faberryman]

Yes, I've read it.  The MONEY quote from the Politico article.

I am just glad to know that Politico is not Fake News.

[Robert Roaldi]

A friend sent me this NYT article about Covid-19 deaths in NY nursing homes, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/nyregion/nursing-homes-deaths-coronavirus.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage.

[Craig Lamson]

I am just glad to know that Politico is not Fake News.

I've quoted politico in the past. However the headline and thrust of the article is really misleading. 

[BernardLanguillier]

Bernie's already won.  The government is re-distributing the entire wealth of this country.  The government is getting involved in everything. 96-0 Senate vote.  Trump on board, republicans on board. There's not a dimes worth of difference between the Democrats and Republicans.  Bailout of states, companies, people, small businesses, printing presses going 24 hours a day.  The government's going to bail out everyone and pay for everything.

These measures are taken by Trump, nobody else. Not Bernie or a Democrat.

He is just doing it to be reelected because his economic results would be a total disaster otherwise. Not only because of the corona, but to a large extend because of how he dealt with it or I should say didn’t deal with it early. He would certainly have had to take communist /sarcasm measures anyway, but it’s going to be much worse.

The amount of money he is having to print now would be less problematic if he had not dramatically reduced taxes for the rich and for businesses earlier in his mandate, worsening the debt and canceling all the measures taken by Obama to put the country on sustainable economic rails.

This is again back to the Fortune magazine cover a few months back “why Trump is bad for business”. His policy looks good economically when you focus on some important indicators at one point in time, but when you consider the full picture over the length of his mandate the reality shows. You cannot bully a virus or ignore its reality. You can try to lie about it but reality comes back to bite you big time.

As usual he is trying to avoid taking responsibility for all this. Adding more deception on top of earlier lies. And you continue to follow and blame his actions to the influence of his political rivals... as if he had cared or does now.

Instead of looking at facts, he will do anything to get reelected.

And we have seen nothing yet. Presently the stock market is artificially maintained but if it were to follow it’s usual behavior it would already have gone down by a factor 2 or 3. How long can this be extended?

Cheers,
Bernard

[Alan Klein]

He is just doing it to be reelected because his economic results would be a total disaster otherwise. Not only because of the corona, but to a large extend because of how he dealt with it or I should say didn’t deal with it early. He would certainly have had to take communist /sarcasm measures anyway, but it’s going to be much worse.

The amount of money he is having to print now would be less problematic if he had not dramatically reduced taxes for the rich and for businesses earlier in his mandate, worsening the debt and canceling all the measures taken by Obama to put the country on sustainable economic rails.

This is again back to the Fortune magazine cover a few months back “why Trump is bad for business”. His policy looks good economically when you focus on some important indicators at one point in time, but when you consider the full picture over the length of his mandate the reality shows. You cannot bully a virus or ignore its reality. You can try to lie about it but reality comes back to bite you big time.

As usual he is trying to avoid taking responsibility for all this. Adding more deception on top of earlier lies. And you continue to follow and blame his actions to the influence of his political rivals... as if he had cared or does now.

Instead of looking at facts, he will do anything to get reelected.

And we have seen nothing yet. Presently the stock market is artificially maintained but if it were to follow it’s usual behavior it would already have gone down by a factor 2 or 3. How long can this be extended?

Cheers,
Bernard

This is not just about Trump. The US Congress enacts spending legislation with presidential approval.  The vote for the $2 trillion Covid related CARES ACT was 96-0 in the Senate.  The Senate wrote the bill.  Every Democrat and Republican voted for it.  In the House of Representatives, it was approved with a voice vote with no record of who voted for it.  Imagine that? One of the largest bailout bills in history and there was no record of who voted for it. But is was seen as a near majority from both parties.  So everyone is responsible for it.  Now the Democrats (Speaker Pelosi) is pushing bailout of the State governments and another $250 billion for small business and workers and a mess of other bailout and money gift.  republicans are going along.  No one, not anyone, is talking about inflation and how this is going to effect the economy for possibly a generation.  Everyone's become a Socialist.

I agree Trump is looking at re-election.  So are the Senators and Congressmen. No one wants to seem like a grinch in this time of need.   It's so much easier to print more money than doing the hard things to really help the economy.  None if this is going to work anyway.  The recession has to play out.  Otherwise we're going to drive the economy into a depression. Marginal businesses have to go out of business to make better businesses more productive.  Resources have to be reallocated by free markets, not the government.  It can't choose winners and losers.  Giving money to companies to pay employees who aren't needed makes no sense.  What happens in 8 weeks when they're still not doing any business and not doing business during the 8 weeks.  Companies in business now are therefore going to get government moneys to pay their employees so that government money just goes into the owner's pocket as non-earned profit.  What's the point in that?  Meanwhile, the rest of society gets poorer as inflated dollars destroys their purchasing power. 

Is anyone paying 2 times what they use to pay for stuff already?  I am. 

[faberryman]

Is anyone paying 2 times what they use to pay for stuff already?  I am.

Groceries (except for the $10 delivery charge) and Rx are the same price for me. I haven't bought anything else in the past month.  Sounds like you are getting taken advantage of.

[Alan Klein]

Groceries (except for the $10 delivery charge) and Rx are the same price for me. I haven't bought anything else in the past month.  Sounds like you are getting taken advantage of.

Prescriptions for me are the same as it's regulated by Medicare. Walgreen and other big national stores seem to be generally holding their prices reasonable.  They can't afford to get a bad wrap.  Where I see huge increase is on the web.  Everything there seems high to me.  Of course, those items are hard to get so supply and demand are causing shortages and higher prices.  Also, sellers can afford to be greedy because no one's going to go back to them later anyway. My main point was that higher prices are going to become normal.  I called the exterminator's and he wanted 2/3 more than he got last year.  When I complained, they told me the manager would call back.  He never called. 

[Alan Klein]

A good report from the Covid frontline:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/opinion/sunday/coronavirus-hospitals-bronx.html

The site noderator requires articles to be summed up and your point given.

[chez]

Is anyone paying 2 times what they use to pay for stuff already?  I am.

Nope...same price as before. In fact I'm seeing some seniors specials during the 1 hour senior grocery shopping. There were people caught selling masks out of their cars for a profit and got busted, fined and shamed on all the news.

[chez]

A good report from the Covid frontline:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/opinion/sunday/coronavirus-hospitals-bronx.html

Thanks for posting. Great piece of journalism.

[Peter McLennan]

Thanks for posting. Great piece of journalism.

Agreed.  Excellent.  Should be required reading.

[LesPalenik]

Groceries (except for the $10 delivery charge) and Rx are the same price for me. I haven't bought anything else in the past month.  Sounds like you are getting taken advantage of.

+1
Pretty much the same prices for basic food and produce. Probably some stores raised prices for some high-demand items, but so far it hasn't affected me at all.
There are also some great deals for the discretionary items. For example, B&H Photo is offering a full frame Nikon D610 with a AF-S NIKKOR 50mm f/1.8G prime lens, the MB-D14 Multi Battery Power Pack, and the WU-1b Wireless Mobile Adapter for $896. If you don't have enough cameras, that's a pretty capable camera for a bargain price.

[Alan Klein]

I just checked.  It seems for March, most prices of things like travel, airfares, etc have gone down.  There's no demand. Food has gone up and booze even more so.
I suspect, figures for April will continue to go higher.

"...The cost of food at home is rising even faster as shelter-in-place requirements lift demand at grocery stores and some goods are in limited supply. The cost of eating at home rose 0.5% for the second month, which is the fastest increase in nearly six years.

BOOZING
With restaurants and bars closed across the country, consumers have been stocking up on alcoholic beverages, and the prices for wine and beer at home have risen sharply. Wine prices rose 0.9%, matching their largest increase since 2014, and beer costs rose 0.8% for a third straight month, bringing the three-month total increase to 2.4%, the steepest run up in prices for malt beverages since late 2008..."
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-prices/how-covid-19-affected-us-consumer-prices-in-march-idUSKCN21S20H

[Alan Klein]

Trump expects to open the economy at some point.  Even assuming it's done carefully with medical input, I don't think many businesses are going to jump right back into full operations.  The cruise industry, something my wife and I enjoyed a lot of over the years, is shattered.  The CDC issued a 100 day order of no cruising in US ports.  Even after the 100 days, who's going to cruise?  The ships are like petri dishes.  Even flying.  We were planning a trip to Europe or Israel.  The fear level is too high.  Disney World, theaters, movies?  Who wants to go into crowds and trust it's OK? 

I don't see anything getting back to normal for months and months even assuming Covid goes away.  Local photography might be more popular.  Backyard BBQ's.  Staying with families more.  And friends.  Local travel to uncrowded beaches and parks.  Kayaking and canoeing. Fishing.

What are the plans for re-opening your country?   What do you think you'll be doing personally?

[Jeremy Roussak]

I think I've provided sufficient information.

You are wrong. You provided no information at all. Don't do it again.

Jeremy

[Rob C]

I think I've provided sufficient information.

I thought so too. Obvioulsy you believe the link is relevant or you wouldn't be posting it. I hate this dependency on pre-digested soul food. Jesus, it's not as if anyone spending time here on Lula has something more pressing to do with said time; if they have, damned well go do it, then: kiss the wife and/or the kids, make the bed, wash the dishes, hoover the carpets!

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Obvioulsy you believe the link is relevant or you wouldn't be posting it...

Relevant for him may not be relevant for me.

[Robert Roaldi]

Here's an opinion piece by Terry Gavin of Macleans magazine about the geopolitical aspects of Covid-19 wrt China and how it, and others, are using social media to disseminate false narratives, https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/the-coronavirus-pandemic-is-the-breakthrough-xi-jinping-has-been-waiting-for-and-hes-making-his-move/. It discusses a lot of other things along the way. What I found the most interesting was the work of several organizations, most of them press media, to discover and analyze the sources of the propaganda. One summary might be this, 'Social media is a cesspool.' But it's not a good guys vs bad guys piece, no one emerges unscathed.

[Manoli]

Posted w/out comment.
WP story breaking today : Source Newsweek / Seth Abramson:Attorney, Newsweek columnisrt

MAJOR BREAKING NEWS (THE WASHINGTON POST): Trump Privately Proposed Just Letting Coronavirus "Wash Over" America—Killing Hundreds of Thousands or Millions of Americans But Keeping the Economy Moving

PS/ Do *not* get it twisted: at the time Trump made this proposal, he had been *fully* briefed—repeatedly, over and over, for two months—on the death toll that would result from not imposing non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) like physical distancing and stay-at-home orders.

PS2/ Do *not* get it twisted: at the time Trump made this proposal, he had been *fully* briefed—repeatedly, over and over, for two months—on the death toll that would result from not imposing non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) like physical distancing and stay-at-home orders.

PS3/ Crimson Contagion, the NCMI Report, Navarro's Memo, briefings by Azar, the Coronavirus Task Force, his PDBs, the NSC-WH economists' paper—most Americans don't get *how many times* Trump had been told "millions could die" when he proposed letting COVID-19 "wash over" America.

PS4/ If you don't understand by now the *limitless height* of the mountain of US bodies Trump would climb to get reelected and maintain his invulnerability to lawsuits/indictment, I feel bad for you. *Anyone* who thinks the captain of this boat cares if you live or die is a fool.

UPDATE/ I just realized that I neglected to write, in the first tweet in this thread, that THE WASHINGTON POST reports that Trump has *repeatedly* proposed this insane plot—always privately—over the last few weeks. Apparently he doesn't understand why he can't let *millions* die.

[LesPalenik]

Relevant for him may not be relevant for me.

not only that, but the quoted link in NY Times site is not accessible to all.
In such a case, an insertion of a representative paragraph in the referred article could be very useful.