June 2020 | Page 9 of 9

People were warned!

Daniel Becker | June 3, 2020 9:08 pm

Politics

I’m certain readers here know this, but… it really needs to be posted.

Rep. Schiff closing remarks of the senate trial of Trump January 23, 2020:

If the truth doesn’t matter, we’re lost. Framers couldn’t protect us from ourselves, if right and truth don’t matter. And you know that what he did was not right. …No constitution can protect us, right doesn’t matter any more. And you know you can’t trust this President to do what’s right for this country. You can trust he will do what’s right for Donald Trump. He’ll do it now. He’s done it before. He’ll do it for the next several months. He’ll do it in the election if he’s allowed to. This is why if you find him guilty, you must find that he should be removed. Because right matters. Because right matters and the truth matters. Otherwise, we are lost.

And it is about time the media starts putting a mic in the faces of the republicans. This needs to keep happening.

People were warned . . .

Marine General James Mattis Denounces Trump

run75441 | June 3, 2020 7:49 pm

Hot Topics

Journalism

Law

Politics

No sorry here, I refuse to call Trump President. It is time for this bum to leave.

Breaking his silence . . .

General Mattis denounces the president for dividing the nation, and accused him of ordering the U.S. military to violate the constitutional rights of American citizens.

General Mattis: “I have watched this week’s unfolding events, angry and appalled The words ‘Equal Justice Under Law’ are carved in the pediment of the United States Supreme Court. This is precisely what protesters are rightly demanding. It is a wholesome and unifying demand – one that all of us should be able to get behind. We must not be distracted by a small number of lawbreakers. The protests are defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values – our values as people and our values as a nation. We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution.’”

James Mattis Denounces President Trump, Describes Him as a Threat to the Constitution The Atlantic

Retired Admiral Mike Mullen (Chairman Joint Chief of Staff).

The barriers facing black people in America today are numerous and daunting: poor schools, dangerous neighborhoods, lack of income, wealth, and connections, persistent formal and informal discrimination in so many settings. The list goes on, and it certainly includes many problems with our criminal justice system, from over-criminalization to degrading conditions of imprisonment to oppressive and violent policing.

Of all the problems facing black Americans, problems in the criminal justice system should be among the easiest to address. This does not mean we can wave a magic wand and make these problems disappear. But there are many promising ideas for reform; a careful effort to reform policing that would make a real difference. We can quibble over the details and test different approaches, but we have a good idea of what needs to be done.

The combination of clear injustice, persistent and brave protesters, and promising policy ideas should make this a moment of hope for Americans, an opportunity to make measurable progress on a journey that has taken far too long.

Instead of grasping this opportunity with open arms, Trump is doing everything in his power to divide us for political gain. Fortunately, Trump may not succeed. We have made real progress since 1968. Even many Republicans are concerned with police violence. Plus, we have cell phones. Ironically, Trump’s resistance may keep the protests alive and underscore the need for change. Let’s hope.

Healthcare Insurance Coverage Information

run75441 | June 3, 2020 7:26 am

Healthcare

Hot Topics

The Kaiser Family Foundation has put up comparisons of one new way (if passed) to obtain healthcare coverage and two existing ways of obtaining healthcare coverage (subsidized coverage) for those who lost job-based health insurance since in the Covid-19 pandemic. I had talked about two of the ways previously.

Options

The two existing options (besides over priced Cobra) are:

Medicaid, for which 47% of those lacking insurance are eligible (Kaiser’s estimate) and,

ACA Subsidized Marketplace Coverage, for which 31% may be eligible dependent on income.

A third possible option alluded to above is the subsidization of 100% of the cost of COBRA (now 65% subsidized of cost of employer sponsored healthcare) premiums as provided in the House HEROES Act recently passed. This new bill could win some Republican backing in the Senate even with McConnell blocking it and calling for a stipulation to be inserted in the bill to release companies, providers, hospitals, etc. of liability. As written, the Heroes Act would be a windfall for employers, healthcare providers and insurers as well as individual recipients. The first three pluses favoring Republicans are likely to support.

Comparisons

Coronavirus dashboard for June 2: the US has settled into a depressing status quo

NewDealdemocrat | June 3, 2020 5:26 am

Healthcare

Coronavirus dashboard for June 2: the US has settled into a depressing status quo

– by New Deal democrat

The US seems to have settled into a status quo where it accepts 20,000 new coronavirus infections and 1,500 deaths each day. This is what I forecast about a month ago, as lockdown regimens were abandoned in much if not most of the country: periods of waxing and waning waves of infection because there simply isn’t the political or social willpower to “crush the curve.”

Meanwhile Vietnam, a developing country with a 90,000,000 population, which immediately went on a regimen of testing and tracing per the WHO recommendations, and has nearly universal wearing of masks, has not recorded a single coronavirus death. Below I show cases, because there are no deaths in Vietnam to show!:

Domestically, it continues to be the case that only Oregon, with a population of about 4.5 million, in addition to several rural States and the island State of Hawaii, has “crushed the curve”:

Coronavirus dashboard for May 31: comparing US States and regions with European countries

NewDealdemocrat | June 2, 2020 10:59 am

Healthcare

Coronavirus dashboard for May 31: comparing US States and regions with European countries

– by New Deal democrat

Among all countries in the world, Sweden has the worst death rate from coronavirus: 5.9 per million per day over the past week. But, even with massive declines from their peaks, most of the States in the US’s eastern megalopolis are worse.

To begin, here’s Kevin Drum’s dashboard of major European countries, plus Canada, as of May 27:

He doesn’t show it, but since Spain had the worst outbreak among major Western European countries, here it is:

Weekly Indicators for May 24 – 28 at Seeking Alpha

Dan Crawford | June 2, 2020 8:42 am

by New Deal democrat

Weekly Indicators for May 24 – 28 at Seeking Alpha

My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha.The news can be summed up in two words: “less awful.” With the exception of one employment measure, every other indicator has bounced off their recent lows, some very substantially. Meanwhile lower interest rates are setting the stage for growth after the pandemic effects ebb.

As usual, clicking over and reading helps reward me with a couple of pennies for my efforts.

Open thread June 2, 2020

Dan Crawford | June 2, 2020 8:34 am

Ironies Of Minneapolis

Barkley Rosser | June 2, 2020 8:32 am

Politics

US/Global Economics

Ironies Of Minneapolis

In 1944 the Minnesota Democratic Party united with the Farmer-Labor Party to form the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party of Minnesota, one of the most progressive state branches of the US Democratic Party. In 1948 its mayor of Minneapolis, Hubert H. Humphrey introduced at the national convention the resolution supporting civil rights for African-Americans whose acceptance led to a walkout by Strom Thurmond and other Dixiecrats, with Thurmond running for president against Truman. Humphrey would later become a famously progressive US senator and eventually LBJ’s vice president, which dragged him down due to the Vietnam War.

He was succeeded by equally progressive Arthur Naftalin as Minneapolis mayor, a political science professor at the University of Minnesota, who served until 1969. However, for reasons that remain somewhat unclear, the attempted progressive policies of these majors did not result in excellent conditions for the city’s then quite small African American population, who lived in highly segregated neighborhoods. Whatever progress did happen was substantially damaged by Naftalin’s successor as mayor, Charles Stenvig, the city’s police chief, who ran on a platform that demanded to “take the handcuffs off the police” and promised to crack down on “racial militants.” He was reelected in 1971, and many see him being a major influence in the police department of Minneapolis becoming an exceptionally racist and vicious one.

All this is recounted in a 2008 paper that appeared in the journal American Studies by Jeffrey T. Manuel and Andrew Urban, “‘You Can’t Legislate the Heart‘: Minneapolis Mayor Charles Stenvig and the Politics of Law and Order.” vol. 43, issue 3/4, pp. 195-219.

Furthermore, with African-Americans moving more into the city in more recent years, the gap between educational outcome as well income and employment outcomes between the races has increased to be among the highest in the nation, despite the liberal past and reputation of the city. These facts contribute to the bad racial situation in the city, which combined with the racist police department have led to this awful current situation there.

A source on the educational gap is Minnesota among worst achievement-gap states; mprnews, and a source on the income and employment gas is Something Is Rotten in the State of Minnesota politico magazine, this latter also dealing with bad racial police behavior in Minneapolis.

I thank Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution for these sources, and this general account, which I did not know of. This is indeed a sad tale, given the proud and generally admirable history of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.

Barkley Rosser

Is There a Future for FDI?—Update

Dan Crawford | June 1, 2020 6:15 am

US/Global Economics

by Joseph Joyce

Is There a Future for FDI?—Update

The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which recently reported on foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2019, has released a new study on the impact of the pandemic on future FDI. The OECD points out notes that FDI flows before the pandemic have been on a downward trend since 2015, and FDI flows in 2018 and 2019 were lower than any years since 2010, suggesting that the decline in FDI will not be reversed when the pandemic eases. This comes as policymakers in the U.S. and elsewhere show concern over Chinese acquisition of domestic firms, and the Chinese government clamps down on Hong Kong’s autonomy.

The OECD report’s authors have optimistic, middle and pessimistic scenarios on the effectiveness of public health and economic policy measures, and their impact on FDI flows in the medium term. Under the optimistic scenario, public health measures are effective in controlling the spread of the virus and economic policies successful in restoring economic growth in the latter half of this year. FDI flows would fall between 30% to 40% in 2020 before rising by a similar amount in 2021 to their previous level. Under the middle scenario, public health and economic policy measures are partially but not completely effective, and FDI flows fall between 35% to 45% this year before recovering somewhat in 2021, but would remain about one-third below pre-crisis levels. The pessimistic scenario is based on the need for continued measures to contain the virus and repair extensive economic damage, which would lead to drop in FDI flows of over 40% this year and no recovery in 2021.

The impact of an extended decline in FDI will be particularly severe for emerging market and developing economies, which have already seen the reversal of portfolio capital flows. The OECD report points out that the primary and manufacturing sectors, which account for a large proportion of FDI in these economies, have been particularly hard hit during the pandemic. Moreover, the corporate earnings that are a major source of the funding of new FDI expenditures by multinational firms fell in 2019 and will decline further this year.