RIGHT NOW THIS ELEVATOR ONLY GOES UP, NO STOPS

The US coronavirus totals  grow apace…we are rapidly catching up to the #3 to #5 nations for overall cases…within the weekend we may pass Germany, Iran and Spain.  That will leave only Italy and China still far ahead of us.  Johns Hopkins shows us with over 19-thousand cases and over 170 deaths.  The federal websites won’t show that because they won’t allow the public to see such  numbers.

Click here to hear Congressman who has the virus describe his situation.

But unemployment numbers and stock market indices and estimates of GDP collapse are all out there to be seen.  This threatens to be the worst period for the American economy since the 1930s, that was the Big Depression.  This one may be the Big Depressing because we have devolved back into a dog-eat-dog, no social welfare kinda place.  Just read of one lady now over 30-thousand in debt for getting her cornonavirus infection treated.  Businesses from oil to hotels to cafes will be going broke, leaving only the buy- your-won stock corporations standing.  Amazon may be the only general retailer left in many communities though they are not REALLY in the community.

States and local governments will need significant cash from feds who can just start up the printing presses.  All over the world those with money want US dollars so the rest of the world would be happy to help fund hospitals and police in every American community if we can get the Republicans to agree.  Just don’t ask any of Trump’s folks to order your community any respirators.  The President must feel they have more important things to do.  Like insuring that Mara Lago can re-open soon.

I worry that if states don’t adopt easy-to-use mail-in voting Trump will use this disease as an excuse to try to cancel the November election, “to protect voters from this deadly virus.”  Make America Healthy Again.  MAHA!

Expect the emergency declarations to come fast and furiously as every part of American society starts to disintegrate, except the internet,  the electric grid, water and sewer and phone service.

CORONA PERFECT

Our Stable Genius (SG) in the White House, the Chosen One, the king of bankruptcy, continues to amaze.  As one could predict from his business record, SG has cowed the Federal Reserve into cutting interest rates to ZERO to great effect.  That, of course, is capitulation prior to retreat. On the surface a macho move of the sort SG prefers, but underneath an admission of panic.  Wall Street decimated stock prices in response to the Fed’s move.  Remember, most trading on Wall Street these days is done by computers using algorithms (algos).   Such algos are built by techies to reflect the inclinations of their MBA bros, those testosterone-rich guys from Stanford, Chicago and Ivy League business schools.  Bullish aggression and victory at all cost are the driving values. Keep in mind that “bullish” is just a shortened version of “bullshit” on which much of the current American regime and financial pyramid is built.

In these times the short-sellers are gigantic leaches on the market.  Of course, the SG knows all this and is deliberately trying to drive the market to its bottom so it can rebound before November, thus proving, once again, how he has everything under control (uc).  That is now one of his stock phrases, uc, goes well with “hoax” and “do-nothing Democrats”.  Not only is everything uc, but the SG has assured all who listen (I can’t force myself to take in those sound-bites, let alone an entire rant or press attack) that we will all be great, or remain great, or become great again, whichever suits your politics of the moment. And if the market doesn’t rise to his command, SG can always try to fire Powell over at the Federal Reserve, even blame him for the snafus having to do with testing and the US refusing to use WHO developed tests that were offered weeks ago.  Surely SG was “Not Responsible” (NR) for that decision.   Expect NR to become another one of his top tweet and rant phrases as this thing spirals into worse and worse appearance.  At least the SG will not have to fly around to funerals and comfort grieving families because in-person memorials will become illegal soon.

Meanwhile, crude oil dropped below $30 per barrel.  That will eventually decimate the American fracking and shale oil industries if it lasts too long.  They start profiting up around $70/barrel I’ve read.  Off camera Putin is licking his chops.  He wants to see the US knocked out of #1 position in global oil production. Back to the Seventies is his secret mantra.  I recall that oil crisis; we were totally in thrall to Saudi Arabia.

Does SG know:

• Texas is letting spring break students party and drink en masse in places like Padre Island?
• The Mara Lago Club, though it is undergoing a one-day deep cleaning, has zero information on its website about corona precautions? Even though people who’ve partied there recently have tested positive?  Has he even thought of testing the staff?  Surely SG knows somebody who could get him access to corona tests…maybe?  He must have more access than you or I.
• Americans are being blocked from traveling to Africa? That those so-called S-H countries don’t want us infecting their people?   Can you blame them?
• That beleaguered Mexico can’t afford to block American tourists? “Come on down, bring virus at your own risk…and ours.”
• That this virus is particularly harmful to SG’s core voters—old white people. Has nobody in his campaign done the math?  What happens if a couple percentage points of my generation (yes, Boomers) dies before they vote in November?
• That today he reversed direction entirely, not just an emergency declaration which made him look macho, at least in a mirror. Not just threatening to fire Powell at the Fed or calling the governor of Washington State a snake. Not just promises of uc from the SG.  No, now he says no country, including the United States, has corona under control,  though SG also suggested America could limit its death toll “if we do a really good job” responding now.  Wow, did SG send a warning memo to the faces on Fix News?
• How pathetic SG himself looked telling state governors it’s their job to find respirators for hospitals in their states? This takes Republican states’ rights theory to new depths.  A perfect use, I must say, of NR (see above).  Brilliant, great, perfect, make governors responsible again.  Even snakey governors.
• That the US now has over 4400 known positive tests, putting us in eighth place in the global virus championship, with only four European  and three Asian countries still ahead of us?

XENOPHOBIA REACHES AN ANCIENT APEX

Update, click here for sorry summary of how few coronavirus tests are getting run in the U.S.A.  By Thursday the perfect Trumpian CDC had run….77!

President Donald Trump may not care about the 240 year old Constitution or many American political traditions.  However, he is clearly in line when one venerable tradition here in this land of immigrants: hatred of the next wave of new-comers.  So his current moves have surmounted the apex of xenophobia, as somebody noted…he is now trying to keep white people from Europe from entering the U.S.  Some of those targets are from largely Protestant nations, even–Denmark, Netherlands, Sweden.

This is a tried and true part of American culture.  Let’s cast our paranoia back to the 1850s when the Know Nothing Party campaigned against Catholics immigrants, esp. German and Irish in those days.   Click here to read Smithsonian’s summary of that movement’s accomplishments.  During that ear there was public debate about whether  Italians and other folks from the shores of the Mediterranean could even be considered white.  Isn’t racism so much fun with so many fine points to debate?  Not as poll-tested or as think-tank smooth as today’s CPAC ideals, but Know Nothing propaganda is very recognizable as it’s resurrected in our current White House.

Did anybody else notice that the CDC did exactly ZERO coronavirus tests yesterday?  Either they don’t want the numbers rising because it will upset somebody…or they’ve run out of needed chemicals to complete the testing…or both.  Fortunately we now have private companies running tests for profit and they don’t stop just to please somebody.  Shareholders uber alles. The whole question of testing nd its failure in the US is about as clear as the reasons for the Vietnam War of Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction, remember those?

Finally, one must note that the two nations in northern Europe excluded from The Donald’s travel ban are the ONLY TWO ENGLISH-SPEAKING COUNTRIES IN EUROPE!  And then there is that little footnote: Trump owns three financially-challenged golf courses in United Kingdom and Ireland, duh… In this regime all interests are self-interest.

Even more finally: where’s the reporting on what has happened at Mara Lago since the visit of the Brazilian official who’s tested positive for coronavirus?  Can we please quarantine Donald at Mara Lago until we know he and it are safe for public consumption?  How about the Mara Lago staff and members??

 

SPEAKING OF HELL HOLES

The American President presents himself as a big-brained expert, and in one arena, I bow to his expertise.  Hell holes.

He knows Florida well with its hurricanes, gators, low altitude just waiting for rising sea levels, pythons, iguana hunters, flesh-eating bacteria…and now, wait for it, deadly skeeter-spread virus.

In glorious Palm Beach County some federal housing there has residents whose children are being bitten by rats…and they also get to run their fingers through mold on the walls.

If that isn’t hellish enough, throw in some rat lung-worm, why don’t you?  Top it off, or bottom it out, with Mara-Lego and all those rich golfers…we’re talking serious hell hole, right Mr. President?