” Seeing those gomers and their firearms walking around the Michigan state house unimpeded reminded me that we were coming up on the 50th anniversary of the day when four unarmed college students were shot to death by soldiers of the Ohio National Guard—two of them for protesting the
escalation of a grotesque war, and the other two for the crime of
crossing the campus of Kent State University at the wrong time. It is
said by many people—including the late H.R. Haldeman, the White House
chief-of-staff at the time—that the massacre at Kent State and its
aftermath was the first push Richard Nixon got toward the paranoia that
led to the crimes of the Plumbers Unit and, eventually, Watergate. It
was one of the tragedies that made up the criminal tragedy that was the
United States involvement in Southeast Asia.
It wasn’t even the only one of those that May; eleven days later, police
shot down two students during protests at Jackson State University in
Mississippi. It also was the event that shook my politics out of the
comfortable suburban torpor in which they had theretofore resided. I
didn’t feel radicalized. I just felt that a deep and profound wrong had
been done to people who were only a couple of years older than I was.
(Interesting Factoid I Just Learned: Alabama football coach Nick Saban
was a student at Kent State at the time and was an acquaintance of
Allison Krause, one of the students who were killed.) Nothing was the
same in my head after that. Terrible arguments at home resulted. None of
it made any sense and, for the first time, I was angry about that.
Their names should be said every year—Allison Krause, William Schroeder,
Jeffrey Miller, and Sandra Scheuer—in their memory, and that should
remind us all of the wildness that still stalks our politics. Now, of
course, we have a president* that owes his election—and, it should be
said, his re-election—to his predator’s gift for unleashing that
wildness. A pandemic has made the country claustrophobic, and the
wildness is awfully close to the surface these days. Our institutions
are tottering. There’s something coiling behind events, and it’s not far
from striking again.”
EMichael, what i’m referring to is just the health care services component of personal consumption expenditures, and as of the first quarter it amounted to 11.4% of GDP….personal consumption expenditures for health care commodities, such as drugs and medical equipment, is somewhat smaller & not broken out separately in the GDP report…
i’ve seen the 17% figure before though…i imagine someone could have added hospital equipment & maybe even ambulances, which would be included in GDP as an investment, to arrive at that number…
i brought it up because many are reporting that GDP crashed because of the pullback in services, citing obvious the weaknesses such as restaurants and travel…i wouldn’t have expected, nor do i think many would have guessed, that it was reduced health care services that had the largest impact…
I believe with a little bit of thinking you would figure it out.
No elective surgery. No dental visits. People trying to stay away from hospitals and doctors even if they need to go.
I had a melanoma excised 4 weeks ago. This at a office with 10 doctors on staff. No one was allowed in the waiting room. When you arrived you texted the office and they told you to come in. Before you entered you had your temperature taken’ questioned about how you were feeling, and pulse oxidation.
I would estimate that more than 95% of their appointments have been cancelled during this lockdown. I also have some basal cells that need to be addressed, but the Doctor says those can wait as they are not life threatening. Emergency visits only.
In the medical office complex where their office is located, the parking lot looks like a ball park’s parking lot in mid winter.
Speaking of money, this could be a big deal if Bair decides she wants to put a target on her back.
“Meet the Warren-Supporting Republican Who Could Be Put in Charge of Policing Coronavirus Bailout Funds
Sheila Bair, a lifelong Republican who backed Warren’s presidential run, has
emerged as a top candidate to chair the new Congressional Oversight
Commission watchdog group, created by the $2.2 trillion CARES Act.
WASHINGTON — A rare GOP ally of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)
is being closely considered for one of the most high-profile and
politically explosive jobs of the coronavirus era: Watching over how the
federal government distributes trillions in rescue funds.
Sheila Bair, a lifelong Republican who backed Warren’s presidential run, has
emerged as a top candidate to chair the new Congressional Oversight
Commission watchdog group, created by the $2.2 trillion CARES Act in
March, people familiar with talks between Democratic House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi and Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told VICE
News…..
There are plenty of reasons why Trump might vehemently object to Bair’s appointment — not least, her public support for his frequent target, Warren. Bair has deep Republican roots: She was appointed chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation by former Republican President George W. Bush in 2006, and in the 1980s was a top aide to former Republican standard bearer, Sen. Bob Dole. But in January, she authored an OpEd “The Republican case for Elizabeth Warren,” arguing Warren has been unfairly mischaracterized by the press as a “left-wing radical.”…
Bair took another swing at Trump in the Washington Post that same month, implying that she could vote for former Vice President Joe Biden and writing: “The country has seen a downward spiral in the qualifications of the individuals we have elected as president. We arguably hit a new low with Donald Trump, who had zero years experience in public service.”
That said, she knows the policy front to back, and hasn’t shied away from opining on the CARES Act. In an interview earlier this month with Yahoo Finance, she swatted away several recurring GOP stimulus ideas, like a payroll tax cut or a capital gains tax cut, and said private equity firms shouldn’t be prioritized for payments.
“We should be prioritizing small businesses that are more the owner-operator variety,” she said. “I would think that deep-pocketed private equity firms could be pretty low on the priority list of where this money goes.”
no one seems to have noticed that almost half of the decrease in first quarter GDP was due to a drop in health care services…
(it subtracted 225 basis point, to be precise)
It is 17% of our GDP.
Shame CSN&Y are 50 years past their prime.
” Seeing those gomers and their firearms walking around the Michigan state house unimpeded reminded me that we were coming up on the 50th anniversary of the day when four unarmed college students were shot to death by soldiers of the Ohio National Guard—two of them for protesting the
escalation of a grotesque war, and the other two for the crime of
crossing the campus of Kent State University at the wrong time. It is
said by many people—including the late H.R. Haldeman, the White House
chief-of-staff at the time—that the massacre at Kent State and its
aftermath was the first push Richard Nixon got toward the paranoia that
led to the crimes of the Plumbers Unit and, eventually, Watergate. It
was one of the tragedies that made up the criminal tragedy that was the
United States involvement in Southeast Asia.
It wasn’t even the only one of those that May; eleven days later, police
shot down two students during protests at Jackson State University in
Mississippi. It also was the event that shook my politics out of the
comfortable suburban torpor in which they had theretofore resided. I
didn’t feel radicalized. I just felt that a deep and profound wrong had
been done to people who were only a couple of years older than I was.
(Interesting Factoid I Just Learned: Alabama football coach Nick Saban
was a student at Kent State at the time and was an acquaintance of
Allison Krause, one of the students who were killed.) Nothing was the
same in my head after that. Terrible arguments at home resulted. None of
it made any sense and, for the first time, I was angry about that.
Their names should be said every year—Allison Krause, William Schroeder,
Jeffrey Miller, and Sandra Scheuer—in their memory, and that should
remind us all of the wildness that still stalks our politics. Now, of
course, we have a president* that owes his election—and, it should be
said, his re-election—to his predator’s gift for unleashing that
wildness. A pandemic has made the country claustrophobic, and the
wildness is awfully close to the surface these days. Our institutions
are tottering. There’s something coiling behind events, and it’s not far
from striking again.”
https://www.esquire.com/new…
EMichael, what i’m referring to is just the health care services component of personal consumption expenditures, and as of the first quarter it amounted to 11.4% of GDP….personal consumption expenditures for health care commodities, such as drugs and medical equipment, is somewhat smaller & not broken out separately in the GDP report…
i’ve seen the 17% figure before though…i imagine someone could have added hospital equipment & maybe even ambulances, which would be included in GDP as an investment, to arrive at that number…
i brought it up because many are reporting that GDP crashed because of the pullback in services, citing obvious the weaknesses such as restaurants and travel…i wouldn’t have expected, nor do i think many would have guessed, that it was reduced health care services that had the largest impact…
Rjs,
I believe with a little bit of thinking you would figure it out.
No elective surgery. No dental visits. People trying to stay away from hospitals and doctors even if they need to go.
I had a melanoma excised 4 weeks ago. This at a office with 10 doctors on staff. No one was allowed in the waiting room. When you arrived you texted the office and they told you to come in. Before you entered you had your temperature taken’ questioned about how you were feeling, and pulse oxidation.
I would estimate that more than 95% of their appointments have been cancelled during this lockdown. I also have some basal cells that need to be addressed, but the Doctor says those can wait as they are not life threatening. Emergency visits only.
In the medical office complex where their office is located, the parking lot looks like a ball park’s parking lot in mid winter.
Speaking of money, this could be a big deal if Bair decides she wants to put a target on her back.
“Meet the Warren-Supporting Republican Who Could Be Put in Charge of Policing Coronavirus Bailout Funds
Sheila Bair, a lifelong Republican who backed Warren’s presidential run, has
emerged as a top candidate to chair the new Congressional Oversight
Commission watchdog group, created by the $2.2 trillion CARES Act.
WASHINGTON — A rare GOP ally of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)
is being closely considered for one of the most high-profile and
politically explosive jobs of the coronavirus era: Watching over how the
federal government distributes trillions in rescue funds.
Sheila Bair, a lifelong Republican who backed Warren’s presidential run, has
emerged as a top candidate to chair the new Congressional Oversight
Commission watchdog group, created by the $2.2 trillion CARES Act in
March, people familiar with talks between Democratic House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi and Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told VICE
News…..
There are plenty of reasons why Trump might vehemently object to Bair’s appointment — not least, her public support for his frequent target, Warren. Bair has deep Republican roots: She was appointed chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation by former Republican President George W. Bush in 2006, and in the 1980s was a top aide to former Republican standard bearer, Sen. Bob Dole. But in January, she authored an OpEd “The Republican case for Elizabeth Warren,” arguing Warren has been unfairly mischaracterized by the press as a “left-wing radical.”…
Bair took another swing at Trump in the Washington Post that same month, implying that she could vote for former Vice President Joe Biden and writing: “The country has seen a downward spiral in the qualifications of the individuals we have elected as president. We arguably hit a new low with Donald Trump, who had zero years experience in public service.”
That said, she knows the policy front to back, and hasn’t shied away from opining on the CARES Act. In an interview earlier this month with Yahoo Finance, she swatted away several recurring GOP stimulus ideas, like a payroll tax cut or a capital gains tax cut, and said private equity firms shouldn’t be prioritized for payments.
“We should be prioritizing small businesses that are more the owner-operator variety,” she said. “I would think that deep-pocketed private equity firms could be pretty low on the priority list of where this money goes.”
https://www.vice.com/en_us/…