FINDING WAYS TO PROFIT ON THE VIRUS

What do you do to insure maximum profits for 6 large companies?  Project Airbridge is one way Jerrod Kushner’s shadow procurement organizational beauties.  The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) contracted with 6 companies to rapidly deliver via air cargo flights Personal Protective Equipment purchased overseas, primarily China. 

The arrangement allowed the companies to split the load 50/50, half going to hot spots around the country and the other half could be sold at whatever the market would bare.  This allowed these companies to offload supplies on the internet and offer for the highest bidder, with 50 states all vying for the PPE products.  What could be better?

The Defense Production Act, if implemented, would have mobilized efforts within the USA to manufacture and deliver, without price gouging and with a distribution system, using Defense Logistics Agency (DLA).  The 245 flights completed and scheduled cost $154 million or $629,000 per flight.  There is no oversight, but plenty delays, incompetence and confusion as to who was in charge.

The Senate is investigating the efforts as a result of the lack of any other oversight that should have been assembled under the “cares Act”.  The senate said:
“It is not clear if the project was effective or cost-efficient, or if other alternatives — such as the early invocation and use of the Defense Production Act to produce medical supplies — would have better alleviated the PPE shortage, saved money, and saved lives,” the senators wrote.  Enough said.

The second wave of the virus has been predicted by the CDC.  The United States currently has no manufacturer of nitrile gloves and there is currently a shortage of gowns.  When asked what it was planning for their 1^st line of defense, in the chance there is a second wave of the virus, FEMA’s response was to have doctors and EMT’s reuse N95 masks and gowns and other PPE.  Will the inept give another chance to have their favorite companies gouge the states, by having them compete again having them profit on misery?  Will we have enough ventilators the second round?

UNEMPLOYMENT DEBACLE UPDATE

Below is an explanation of the erroneous BLS unemployment data for March, April, and May, 2020. These paragraphs are excerpts from the Washington Post article dated 10 June , 2020 by Eli Rosenberg and Heather Long.  I make my opinion known in last paragraph.

Economists said they could not think of another statistical issue of comparable magnitude in the country’s modern era. The errors come at a time when missteps at public agencies, combined with an administration that has spread falsehoods and misinformation, are fueling mistrust with public institutions.

 For the next month, the agencies increased their training to try to educate field workers about the different classification specifications. Despite these efforts, the errors continued in the April report, adding up to a whopping five-point difference between the official rate 14.7 percent and the one that corrected for the error, 19.7 percent.

Friday’s job report helped fuel a stock market rally, as markets have trended toward pre-pandemic highs. Trump held a news conference Friday to hail the drop in the unemployment rate, even though it remains the highest since the Great Depression, touting it as a sign that the economy’s recovery was well underway. Some Republicans in Congress have pointed to the falling unemployment rate as a sign that the economy doesn’t need billions of dollars more in federal aid.

  “I think these headline figures are really important for shaping people’s impressions of how serious the recession is,” said Barry Eichengreen, a professor of economics and political science at the University of California at Berkeley. “These numbers shape the impression of policymakers and of people who put pressure on them to do more or do less.”

Eichengreen said that he couldn’t think of a more significant issue with a key economic measurement, since the data-collection system was built in the aftermath of the Depression.

“I don’t think in the modern era of statistical reporting, that we’ve had a possible error in a major economic statistic this large,” he said. “Because we’ve never seen a movement of the economy within a month or two, as what’s happened this time.”

To some economists, there are other causes for concern in the monthly report. Only 67 percent of households responded to the survey in May, down from over 80 percent before the pandemic. As fewer and fewer people take the survey, it can become less representative of the adult U.S. population.

“The fall in the response rate is a concern because you are trying to come up with an estimate of labor market outcomes for over 200 million people,e from a survey of what is ideally 60,000 households,” said Ernie Tedeschi, a former Treasury chief economist who is now at Evercore ISI.

There are those that thought perhaps the BLS would have been better served by including the disclosure about the erroneous data at the top of the report, not on the sixth page of a 42-page report.

Beach, the BLS commissioner, echoed those considerations, saying that the pandemic had created an “extraordinary” set of circumstances for government statisticians to sort through. But he said revising the March, April and May unemployment data was “off the table.”

“Our systems are created in more normal times,” he said. “We are doing everything we can short of revising the unemployment rate, which we don’t do.”

Since the report came out on the 5^th of June, I have made my opinion known about the report. With the known and reported error of 3-5% I am of the opinion that the values are so much out of line with reality, the BLS should correct the values in any future publications.   Anything less, as an economist, makes me suspect of all BLS data going forward.

MOVING DAY

It appears the elevating of Impeached Donald Trump to Sainthood Show by the Republican Party, has moved to Jacksonville from Charlotte N. Carolina.
The City of Charlotte released this statement Wednesday 10 June 10, 2020:

“The City Attorney and members of his staff have been meeting regularly with the legal representatives of the Republican National Committee and other parties to the convention agreements. The City of Charlotte remains willing to work in good faith to complete its contractual obligations under the terms of the two Convention agreements. The City has not been officially informed of the RNC’s intent to relocate the convention. Considering the media reports of the RNC’s apparent unilateral decision to relocate a substantial portion of the convention to Jacksonville, an immediate discussion with the RNC and our partners regarding contractual obligations and remedies resulting from this apparent decision is required.”

The above statement flies in the face of having the secret service cancelling their reservations in N. Carolina.   In Jacksonville, hotels are blocking out the end of August, during the time of the republican convention.  Roy Cooper Governor of N.C., still has not committed to having an open virus spewing convention. The current numbers from the N.C. infection rate and hospitalizations do not support lifting restrictions and lifting social distancing in large confined spaces according to the CDC guidelines. 

Ron Desantis the Republican governor of Florida will acquiesce to the demands of impeached president Trump, putting politics over public health.  Due to contractual  agreements, some of the convention business is obligated to be performed in N. Carolina.  The gala coronation show will be most likely be in Jacksonville Florida, where he can infect as many people as possible. Will Natural selection wipe out all the old delegates in the crowded arena?

It has just been announced by the Republican Party that the coronation will take place in Jacksonville Fla.  Republican business and some other activities will remain in Charlotte N.C.

TRUMPS THANKS HIMSELF

The impeached president is acting like someone that is begging for a thank you for him giving you your own money.  I received a self-congratulatory form letter from the impeached today, using taxpayer money to remind everyone and to thank him for being Uncle Santa Claus.  Taxpayers paying for a letter that makes him feel good is (I guess) better than him starting a war with Iran I say?  Why the letter?  Taxpayer dime printing and mailing so he can self-indulge?  Hey Donald, it wasn’t your money?  We the taxpayer are paying ourselves not you.