COST OF PANDEMIC

The travesty of the pandemic has repercussions that will last for decades.  The national debt will exceed the GDP 10 years sooner than originally projected.  Biden at the end of February 2020, on the pandemic, stated how important it was to listen to the doctors and medical professionals. For 3 weeks, Trump labeled it a political hoax and stated only 1 person had the virus.  That it would disappear by April when the weather warms up.  It is known now, that the first death occurred in California on the 6^th of February. 6 weeks later, Trump took the virus seriously and pushes back his political erroneous timeline by almost a month. 

Trump inherited a 500 billion deficit from Obama.  In his first year and subsequent years, he has had a 1 trillion dollar deficit.  This created an economy based on debt.  He used all the tools in the government’s arsenal to avoid inflation. His ill-advised tariffs and economic and tax policies, have put the United States in a poor position to handle the pandemic.  In lieu of paying down the debt in a booming economy, Trump decided it was going to reward the corporations for their support with one of the largest tax breaks.  Trump had always stated he was the king of debt.  That was personal debt that the taxpayer ultimately paid for.  His 1.5 billion dollar bankruptcy was prompted by his losses in a casino venture.  The public debt he is generating has the bulk of the bailout for those within the top 10% of the economy, in lieu of paying those individuals or ultimately paying back the debt. 

The pandemic has impacted all aspects of the economy.  The ultimate result of the pandemic will be a high price for taxpayers.  This will result in higher taxes and lower social benefits.  The government has allowed the fed to basically print money.  The bailouts thus far, in cash payments, amounts to approx. a $3 trillion printing.  The costs could increase by an additional $4 trillion in the Fed borrowing and potential for forgiveness, which would be tantamount to a grant.  With a 4 trillion dollar debt (1 for Trump’s annual debt and the additional 3 trillion by the Bailout), the GDP was running at 22-23 trillion/year.  The $7 trillion would only cover a total shutdown for 3 to 4 months. 

I have seen the inadequacies of this administration and I am looking at, what I and others are calling a failed state without leadership.  The Republican mantra to have the states be responsible looks every day to be a failed strategy.  This political philosophy does not work when there is a national emergency.  The response by the Administration was late, inadequate and is confusing, with contrary statements by the medical professionals and Trump, which cannot seem to be on the same page. 

The virus has uncovered the vulnerabilities and inadequacies of our medical system which depends on employment as the method of coverage-what could go wrong?  How about 26 million unemployed and climbing?  Soon these individuals will lose medical insurance and will be at the mercy of the bill collectors.  If an individual gets the virus without insurance cost could be in the 100’s of thousand dollars. 

TRUMPIAN POPULISM

Our Mr. Ed is promoting a sinister ideology acts like a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide in the same briefing.  The Populist mantra is “us vs them” and sowing division and dissention. This is witnessed in his propensity to attempt to dismantle the administrative state.  He labels the professionals in all departments as deep state individuals.  This has the effect of his minions mustering taunts and threats on these individuals that actually do the work of government.

Touting the benefits of masks and in a few seconds later he says, “I will not use one”.  His briefings stay on script for a few minutes until he riffs.  His propensity to say things out loud that would be better off not saying.  He keeps attempting to play Dr. Ed.  He constantly is providing lunacy, as if he graduated Cum Laude from the Trump School of Medicine.  The messages from the professionals continually contradict his medical advice, when asked. 

Usually in a crisis where a Populist that sows division and not unity, will ultimately they will be judged for a lack of knowing how to make a unifying message. His lack of preparedness and alienation of his civil servants created doubt in Mr. Ed’s mind that they were initially wrong.  He has not recovered from his stupidity. 

His response when he figured out he could rightly be blamed for the calamity, he shoved the response first to the vice president and then to the states.  His not listening to civil servants was result of Mr. Ed’s thinking of himself as a stable genius and thinking he knew better. After all it was a virus similar to the flu. Not!  The virus was new, deadly (10-20 times more deadly), no one had antibodies and it was easily transmitted.  All this was known in early January.  Not even close to the flu! This lag in the response has cost billions, if not trillions, of taxpayer dollars.  When it comes down to it, who can count on Mr. Ed to be consistent, on message, and have some leadership quality?  Mr. Ed has lost the confidence of individual countries, and the world and they know they cannot count on him in an international crisis.  Our own manufacturers have reeled at both his actions and inactions.

The world sees the United States as more like China than the other developed countries.  They see the Mr. Ed as an authoritarian populist leader like Xi.  Trumps grab of the procurement and bailout processes in directing both manufacturing and denying real time oversight for the bailout.  Mr. Ed is also an isolationist unlike Xi, who is going country to country buying raw material supplies and developing infrastructure projects.  The make America great mantra ignores the fact that, in this world there are always winners and losers.  By Mr. Ed always trying to be a winner, anyone that deals with him knows his weakness for flattery.  They also know that he will eventually use the flattery against them.  That makes him extremely unpopular abroad. 

He knows only one dance, and being a product of the late 60’s and early 70’s I’m sure the one dance he knows all too well is the hustle.  I guess you can only say it’s the best a horse’s ass can do.

STEVEN MILLER THE WHITE HOUSE HORSE WHISPERER

With Mr.Ed, being the stated stable genius in charge, we know this genius has another advisor named Wilbur (for those in another generation, Wilbur was Mr. Ed’s owner on the old talking horse show from WAY back in the day) Therefore, it makes sense that Stephen Miller is the horse whisperer, since the stable is where horses resides. Stephen Miller political advisor to Mr.Ed and has been the ghoul in charge of immigration and the rush to the bottom the xenophobic policies this president has pursued. The latest attempt at a -0- immigration policy was given a boost by the 90-day suspension of all immigration with the excuse of the pandemic.  This suspension applies to renewal of green cards. No new green cards for 90 days.

Stephen Miller is the architect of family separation, leaving asylum seekers stay in Mexico, loosing track of children in U.S. custody and other ghoulish behavior.  The mantra of this administration when it comes to immigration is, “how can we put up the most barriers and make it painful to attempt to immigrate?”. 

The stated goal of the 90-day policy was to create jobs for U.S. citizens’, when the pandemic subsides. This policy would have U.S. citizens to perform service and agricultural jobs that these immigrants once performed.  Service jobs in the revived economy will not come bounding back.  These jobs are going to be the jobs that will be vacant, and without immigrants the jobs available will be the lowest wage jobs in these areas.  Will this policy last until the end of the pandemic? Whenever that is?

The manufacturing jobs that may be forced to return, such as the production of PPE, can only return with consumers paying a premium.  This is as a result of the wages and working conditions in the third world, with cheap abundant unskilled labor.  To compete with the global economy it would require automation to offset the labor costs.  Automation eliminates the hands-on manufacturing employing fewer workers.  The only other way is to apply tariffs to these goods and thus raising the price.  If tariff policies are pursued, these jobs will be at a bare minimum wage or where piece count makes wages comparable to minimum, only if you produce.

Ronald Reagan recognized the contribution immigrants have had, and history shows immigrants have always improved the U.S. economy.  California, an agricultural state, has been dependent on the temporary migrant population and guest worker programs for the last 100 years.  Reagan allowed 11 million immigrants to seek citizenship.  The fact that dual language individuals score 10-15% higher in IQ testing makes a good argument for the policy to be a race to the bottom in not allowing immigration.  Its Jobs, jobs, jobs -Yeah!