dtucker300 Loc: Vista, CA

I suggested this was the motivating factor about 4 weeks ago and was roundly rebuffed by a few of the progressive, l*****t, and socialist Democrats on OPP. I will say it again because the mainstream media is pulling out the usual line-up of know-nothing suspects to be on their news and commentary programs. Hey, here's a novel idea. How about getting a professional who knows WTH they are talking about instead of having the same political hacks that know nothing, but have their list of l*****t talking points and appear night after night on the shows. The fact is that the evil Democrats are SALIVATING at the prospect of C****-** causing a major recession.

Obviously Bernie Sanders is not getting the nomination, and that leaves Biden as the only candidate still standing to go up against Trump. It is also the only snowball's chance in hell they have of beating Trump. It is so important that they win, that they don't care if C****-** destroys the economy and k**ls a large number of Americans. It's the only way they can beat Trump, and they are quietly hoping this happens because they have no other ideas or programs, zip, nada, bankrupt, in which to improve the lives of American citizens. They would rather give free healthcare, education, housing, welfare, etc, to i*****l a***ns (that's the non-PC name for them, but it is the appropriate name for these usurpers) in exchange for their v**es going to the Democratic party.

The Democratic party will lie, c***t, and steal their way to a win, not only the White House but Congress, State, and Local e******ns. It is up to us to stop them. There are enemies of America who will donate millions of dollars to left-wing candidates. They complain about the corporate influence in buying e******ns and then turn a blind eye to people such as George Soros, or Michael Bloomberg, using billions of dollars to influence the e******ns. Russia spent $100,000 in 2016 e******n. They didn't change one single v**e in that e******n. Can the democrats honestly say that they didn't change anyone's v**e in that e******n when some precincts had more Democratic v**es, greater than the number of eligible v**ers in the district? B****t harvesting, registering the dead, multiple v****g, and b****t-box stuffing is nothing new. Both parties have resorted to these practices in the past. But isn't it odd that after ever e******n additional b****ts suddenly appear that have not yet been counted, and they go predominately to the Democratic candidate by a substantially wide margin?


Posted Monday, March 9, 2020 | By Jeff Szymanski |

After teaching high school economics for 15 years, I can explain what causes a recession. Simple— decreased demand. When consumers buy fewer goods and services, suppliers have to cut back as profits disappear. Businesses lay off workers. Those now jobless have less income, and they buy less. That adds up to many lost restaurant meals, movie tickets, and concert or sporting events not purchased. Those establishments then lay off some staff, and there goes the whole ball game (i.e., the overall economy), so to speak. It’s now a downward spiral. A contraction. A recession.

But why do people initially cut back spending and demand? Fear is a culprit, and that’s fueled by the media. Past recessions have been caused by global events, overproduction, too much debt, or when money gets too expensive (i.e., high-interest rates discourage borrowing and spending). The 2008 crisis was largely in housing. Banks practically threw money at people, and many took on more debt and more house than they could truly afford. It eventually came to a bust.

It need not have been so bad. Even when unemployment hits 9-10%, still 90-91% of people are working. But the media signals through their negative reporting that “Your job may be cut next.” People shudder. They close their wallets.

Today, the fundamentals of the U.S. economy could not be stronger. Companies cannot even find staff to hire with our 50-year record low unemployment rate. Business is booming. Paychecks are fat. The stock market hit highs in February 2020, the likes of which we’ve never seen.

Enter C****av***s. Here’s the definition from the World Health Organization: “C****av***ses are a large family of v***ses that cause illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).” Though not new, the current strain, C****-**, is novel. It, too, causes flu-like symptoms. While it’s more easily spread, 80% of those, who contract it will have virtually no or very mild symptoms. The young, middle-aged, and healthy have little to fear any more than seasonal flu, which k**led 61,000 Americans last season and over 12,000 so far this season. Why no hysteria over that? The elderly and immunoc*********d should always be extra vigilant with hygiene with any circulating v***ses.

The liberal media barely mentions the above. A cruise ship circling at sea or histrionic words like “Trump-v***s” are better visuals and headlines to gain audiences. Calling for large scale shutdowns of the economy is no more warranted than telling people not to drive their cars because there were 38,800 vehicle fatalities in 2019. If we all stayed home last year, there would have been no car crashes, and almost 40,000 more people would be alive. Of course, without cars, our lives, our freedoms, and the entire economy would be so severely disrupted we would scarcely want to live.

If there’s one thing you can take to the bank, it’s the strong correlation between p**********l e******ns and the economy. When an incumbent president has a recession in year 3 or 4 of his term, he’s out (Carter, George H.W. Bush). If the economy is doing well, v**ers stick with whoever is in office, and party matters not (Reagan, Clinton, George W. Bush, Obama).

Anyone looking at the economic data during the first two months of 2020 would easily conclude a Trump landslide. Even those who say the links between the two variables might have weakened, some would forecast a Trump ree******n. What single event would make v**ers want to change course? Answer— a recession. Now you know why the Democrat candidates and media are secretly rooting for a downturn soon, and by needlessly scaring Americans over a v***s strain that is not Ebola but more flu-like, both are hoping to get a Democrat elected in November.

Jeff Szymanski works in political communication for AMAC, a senior benefits organization with over 2.1 million members.

dtucker300 Loc: Vista, CA

Playing Politics With C****av***s
by Richard A. Epstein
Monday, March 9, 2020
Stories of the rapidly escalating responses to c****av***s (C****-**) dominate the news cycle. There is an increasing number of cases throughout the United States, and many major events have been postponed or canceled, such as the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas and the Emerald City Comic Con in Seattle, Washington. Many institutions have canceled non-essential travel and public health officials are recommending that people with weak i****e s****ms stay home. Purell dispensers are proliferating in public places, and there have even been modest runs on food supplies and toilet paper.

At this time, the total cost of the combined responses is assuredly in the trillions, and these costs vastly outstrip the number of deaths worldwide from the c****av***s. The New York Times is presently reporting (and constantly updating) a total of 545 confirmed cases across 34 states and DC with 22 total deaths—surely a low estimate of the total prevalence of the disease. By way of comparison, the CDC reports that this year’s U.S. flu season saw between 34 and 50 million infections, between 350 thousand and 620 thousand flu hospitalizations, and between 20 thousand and 52 thousand flu deaths. (The wide range of these estimates is due to difficulty estimating the number of flu cases that go undetected through what the CDC terms “influenza surveillance.”)

Why has there been such a dramatic mismatch in the responses to ordinary flu and the c****av***s? Medical and epidemiological experts say that the capacity of C****-** to spread could generate huge numbers of deaths and illnesses worldwide. It is presently estimated that C****-** has a global mortality rate in the ballpark of 3 percent, being roughly an order of magnitude more fatal than traditional influenza. C****-** may also be more contagious than the flu: Preliminary studies suggest that one infected with the c****av***s will infect somewhere between 2 and 3 others, whereas one infected with the flu will spread it, on average, only to 1.3 others. Even still, we are a long way from the Spanish flu p******c of 1918, which resulted in perhaps 500 million infections and between 50 and 100 million deaths worldwide, including some 675,000 Americans. The level of medical and institutional sophistication today makes it exceedingly unlikely that these results will be replicated with C****-**.

All this raises a question: What is the role of government in crises such as these?

In ordinary times, the classical liberal approach favors strong property rights and limited government. But it is less widely known that this same theory, like virtually every other general political approach, advocates strong government controls in any emergency situation that poses an immediate peril to life and health. As a classical liberal, I often begin my analysis with the Roman maxim “Salus Populi suprema lex esto”—the health (or well-being) of the population is the highest good. That principle is widely understood to invoke a second maxim, which is that ordinary property rights are suspended in times of necessity, but only so long as the necessity lasts.

The notion of necessity is narrowly defined to cover only those cases where there is an imminent peril to life or property caused by natural forces such as storms, fires, floods, famine, and disease. These necessities come in two types—private and public. The former involves cases where, for example, someone stranded at sea is entitled to seek shelter on the property of others to save himself, even if he must compensate the property for any property damage he causes. But for these purposes, the key class of cases is public necessities affecting thousands or even millions. Since the earliest times, the state has had plenary power to do what must be done to protect its population from these perils.

This brute t***h means that compensation for individual losses is generally denied under a doctrine of absolute privilege. The state, in other words, has the power to expropriate power from anyone and everyone without paying any compensation whatsoever. But as with private cases of necessity, this extraordinary level of government power is lost once the emergency is past. Unfortunately, these salutary principles have come under attack recently. Former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is perhaps best known for his quote “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” One must, he went on, seize “an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.” A classical liberal rejects this temptation to rethink basic policies in times of duress.

On this score, the New York Times misdelivers. Its lead editorial by Charlie Warzel, an opinion writer, is entitled “When C****av***s Quarantine Is Class Warfare.” The major takeaway: “A p******c offers a great way to examine American class inequities.” Sure, Warzel is right to note that the occurrence of C****-** has had a differential impact on various classes of society. This is partly due to the luck of the draw as to where people live, work, and vacation. There is no dispute that people who live in remote places and can earn a living online will fare better in a crisis. Warzel himself lives in Montana and works from home—and he notes that his lifestyle, which has shielded him from the v***s, is a luxury. But that doesn’t mean that we should address the present crisis by looking at the peculiar circumstances of certain classes of people.

Warzel argues for a number of policy responses to the outbreak. Some of his suggestions could well make sense—for an emergency. He mentions Congress “mandating” paid leave for people who fall ill or whose services are needed at home. The risk of spreading infections, in principle, makes that proposal sensible so that sick workers are kept out of circulation and others are cared for. Whether the initiative should be done primarily privately or by the state is tricky, but a discussion of some public subsidy to offset the massive negative externalities of contagion clearly belongs on the table. But it hardly follows, as Warzel argues, that mandated paid family leave is appropriate in ordinary times when there is no massive infection risk.

Warzel also wants people to start reimagining their lives for when the crisis passes. Maybe more people should go vegan, and or patronize local businesses, he suggests. But does he really believe that people like him, who are fortunate enough to work remotely, will change their lives in such ways? Why would we think that such changes will occur when customary business arrangements worked just fine before? We must learn to suppress our own totalitarian impulses.

Another journalist, James Traub, is also using the crisis to advance a political agenda. In his gloomy essay “Our ‘Pursuit of Happiness’ Is K*****g the Planet,” he uses the tragedy of the c****av***s outbreak to launch an explicit attack on the principles of classical liberalism. He challenges John Stuart Mill’s harm principle that allows individuals to do what they will until they engage in harm to other individuals. But his argument is tenuous, for there is absolutely no connection whatsoever between the c****av***s and g****l w*****g. Traub is just wrong to use this crisis to advance a goal of net-zero carbon and the Green New Deal. And implementing his policy proposals will do nothing to mitigate the current p******c or a similar tragedy in the future.

The c****av***s outbreak has much more to do with the nefarious activities of the Chinese government and the rapid movement of people across the globe than with some tiny perturbation in global temperature over the last few decades. It is therefore deeply irresponsible for Traub to ask: “Are we willing to sacrifice personal liberty for global survival?” A world p******c requires immediate attention to deadly risks, not woolly proposals to reform American society that make no more sense in times of crisis than in times of peace.

Seth

I worked on Wall Street back in the early to mid 1980s until I realized that that particular environment wasn't what I wanted to spend a career in.

That said, during that time I learned quite a bit about the nature of the business, both on the stock and commodities sides -- to say it is reactionary would be putting it mildly.

No matter how healthy the economy is at any given time (a healthy economy, as we've seen thus far during the Trump presidency, drives the markets up), a single event or chain of events of a negative nature can bottom out prices in a heartbeat, but as long as the economy remains robust these panics are short term and prices rebound soon afterward.

I believe the applicable term would be "fickle."

Where the mainstream media is concerned, most of those "fine folks" don't know the mechanics of the markets, all they understand is that prices are up or down, and when they're down, especially during the Trump Administration, the media make a feast of it for purely political reasons.

Meanwhile, despite the current price war between the Saudis and Russia, oil prices have begun, albeit fractionally, to rebound and indices on stock exchanges around the world, including here in the U.S., have begun to move back in a positive direction.

Trump's proposal for payroll tax cuts in industries affected by the C****-** scare and the Fed fractionally easing interest rates are good moves -- while the Republican controlled Senate is on board with the Trump plan, however, it will have to pass the Democrat controlled House, and with Pelosi & Co. taking every opportunity to try and sabotage the Trump Administration, I suppose we'll shortly see whether or not the Democrats will play ball for the good of the American people or play politics, the American people be damned, in their usual efforts to erode the Trump economy.

Seeing as the Democrats have already done nearly irreparable damage to their chances of any joy on 3 November by focusing the lion's share of their work output on their War on the President®, it will be interesting to see if they want to add to that self sabotage by owning a refusal to work with the administration on this issue as well.

dtucker300 Loc: Vista, CA

Never underestimate the stupi***tic ways of Democrats and RINOs in large groups.

Seth

Amen!

RT friend Loc: Kangaroo valley NSW Australia

If the vast majority of wealth and power is given by way of hand-outs to a few wealthy people recession becomes obsolete, this is what's happening and being sped up by Trump, not that the Dems would slow it down, certainty not by a Biden Presidency, however recessions being out of the question you might get a revolution.

woodguru

You don't call for recessions, you simply report on them as the signs lead into them...or create them with policies everyone can predict will result in downturns like trump has unerringly done.

Tug484

They really gave people a se******n.
I guess that's the best they've got.
Two old coots and one is a c****e and the other one is senile.

Seth

Three factors in the U.S. economy that have made it the strongest in my lifetime, over 60 years, have been President Trump's corporate tax cuts, his renegotiation of foreign trade relationships and his cancellation of Obama's heavy handed regulations.

Between the overly high corporate tax rates (among the highest in the world), the previous trade deals and stifling regulation, millions of American jobs had been driven out of the country.

If a Democrat like Biden got into the White House in November and maintained a Democrat majority in the House (thankfully, neither is going to happen), we would likely see a return to pre-Trump tax rates and stifling regulation once again driving jobs back offshore and renegotiation of Trump's trade deals to disadvantage American business so other countries would "like us."

No, thanks...

bylm1-Bernie

You haven't been objectively listening to the MSM have you. What I have heard is more than reporting, it is trying to influence what Americans think. I don't see how you can call it otherwise.

lindajoy Loc: right here with you....

Absolutely outstanding reply !!! Factual, objective and true... 👏🏻👏🏻

V***s is here as well as the v***s fear mongers using it to tank the economy... Intentionally, no less...

The wait and see of the fickle markets is how the fear mongering media measure their success..

Not to dismiss the real v***s at all, those squeamish investors will stabilize soon enough~~ Like when the downs really do start to hit their true portfolios..

Until then, be safe, stay healthy, buckle up buttercup so you don’t get k**led in an accident before the v***s gets ya..Once again, thank you and d for clear observations and great analysts!!!

lindajoy Loc: right here with you....

Or fabricate another false f**g to try and once again shame the President since nothing done so far has been able to change the course of America First and the achievements Trump has been able to obtain in spite of the left~~

lindajoy Loc: right here with you....

Yup! Scary stuff!!! I’ll join you in the “ No, thanks ....!!!

Seth

Thank you.

Seth

Yep, the last thing we need is a return to the Oconomy.