Fact check: Did a Liberal tax cut help reduce poverty rates'
N_Fiddledog @ Wed Mar 11, 2020 9:15 pm
So if I understand your graphic correctly poverty has been massively reduced under capitalist systems? Very well if that's what you want to say I don't have a problem with that.
And Capitalism is necessary to finance the sort government managed extravagance you would like to enjoy, you say. OK you sold me.
But how you leap from that to the idea that to make the system truly work the creators and drivers of wealth need to be deprived of theirs is a kind of irrationality that dips into insanity.
BeaverFever @ Thu Mar 12, 2020 9:05 am
N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:
So if I understand your graphic correctly poverty has been massively reduced under capitalist systems? Very well if that's what you want to say I don't have a problem with that.
Yes. Regulation and government spending improves capitalism
$1:
And Capitalism is necessary to finance the sort government managed extravagance you would like to enjoy, you say. OK you sold me.
. Yes you’re slowly catching on. Although I wouldn’t call sanitation, essential services, social insurance, healthcare and education etc. “extravagance” But that’s just your inability to think and discuss things like an adult. $1:
But how you leap from that to the idea that to make the system truly work the creators and drivers of wealth need to be deprived of theirs is a kind of irrationality that dips into insanity.
Nobody said anyone needs to be deprived of their wealth. Again that’s your inability to think and talk like an adult.
N_Fiddledog @ Thu Mar 12, 2020 11:25 am
So let's make some obvious conclusions from what you've been telling us then, but we'll mix in a little reality to see if the 2 can coexist.
You tell us that when times were simpler not so much regulation was necessary but as society got wealthier more regulation was necessary. Believe it or not I don't necessarily have a problem with that idea.
So more regulation occurred with more wealth. I conclude you are at least saying the one requires the other. Maybe but how much.
However you also seem to be telling us that during times of recession more regulation is also necessary.
Can there ever be a time when balance is required? What I favor is balance. Or is added government control always necessary? 'Doesn't matter whether the economy is up or down' is what you appear to be saying.
The two longest periods of economic recession took place under Presidents Roosevelt and Obama. Both tried added regulation and economic stimulus with other people's tax money. Neither worked. There was minor, temporary impetus then the economy returned to the tank. Roosevelt's New Deal was 1936-39 but the economy did not start regaining strength until after Pearl Harbor in 1941.
The economy did not truly regain solidity until after both President's terms. This apparently was coincidence (or perhaps magic)
However myself and others can't help noticing the fact that both Presidents' terms were followed by times of regulatory easement.
We would suggest a return of balance and with it a time of greater investor and entrepreneurial confidence.
Oh and if you're not advocating for higher taxes how are you proposing to pay for all these new government controls you appear to want.
In fact let's get to the nitty gritty. Are you saying more government management is what creates wealth? I must be understanding that incorrectly. You appear to be saying it but that would be nuts.
BeaverFever @ Thu Mar 12, 2020 7:46 pm
N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:
So let's make some obvious conclusions from what you've been telling us then, but we'll mix in a little reality to see if the 2 can coexist.
You tell us that when times were simpler not so much regulation was necessary but as society got wealthier more regulation was necessary. Believe it or not I don't necessarily have a problem with that idea.
So more regulation occurred with more wealth. I conclude you are at least saying the one requires the other. Maybe but how much.
You tell us that when times were simpler not so much regulation was necessary but as society got wealthier more regulation was necessary. Believe it or not I don't necessarily have a problem with that idea.
So more regulation occurred with more wealth. I conclude you are at least saying the one requires the other. Maybe but how much.
I didn’t say regulation wasn’t necessary, I just said there wasn’t much regulation. The poverty rate in the year 1900 was 80% and average life expectancy was age 46. Government intervention, through spending and regulation, helped society become wealthier. But government didn’t just get up one day and decide to play an active role. I would say that as society became more COMPLEX government intervention became more necessary. Getting all those farmers to leave the countryside and move to the city to work in the growing number of factories for example required government to implement various push and pull factors When those workers started protesting their working conditions and rioting in the streets, striking, etc for better living conditions government again had to settle the matter and get people back to work. When diseases like Spanish Flu and Typhoid swept through the newly crowded cities, decimating the labour force and leaving businesses understaffed, government had to implement public sanitation and minimum wage laws and social security. Eventually people had more money in their pockets than they needed for basic survival and wanted to buy more things. Capitalism gave them those things, which created more jobs, which created more demand to buy things, and so on in a virtuous cycle, with government nudging here and there along the way to help keep the wheels of capitalism greased, the workers working, the shoppers shopping and the investors investing.
No two people even from the same political ideology will agree on exactly how much government there should be and what should or shouldn’t be regulated or what government should or shouldn’t spend money on. There’s no magic or universal answer and what’s right a particular one point in time may not be right in another.
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However you also seem to be telling us that during times of recession more regulation is also necessary.
. Spending, not necessarily regulation. In the 2008 economic meltdown and subsequent US housing crisis, regulation of the banking, housing and mortgage markets was needed for that specific problem. Canada didn’t experience that meltdown because our markets were already well-regulated. We did have a recession in the parts of the country that relied on exports to the collapsed US market and Harper responded with “Canada’s Economic Action Plan” which was billions of government spending on “shovel ready” infrastructure projects across the country, a minuscule version of FDR’s New Deal construction projects. $1:
Can there ever be a time when balance is required? What I favor is balance. Or is added government control always necessary? 'Doesn't matter whether the economy is up or down' is what you appear to be saying.
Government is always balancing. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Some things, like stopping pollution of air and water aren’t dependent on the business cycle because they’re not economic problems they’re just problems period. If you’re dumping toxic waste in the country’s waterways you just need to stop, regardless of whether the economy is going up or down. For all the economic and social progress I’ve talked about over the last century or so, we never really made much progress on pollution over that time , we just used to allow polluters to do as they pleased except in the most extreme cases.
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The two longest periods of economic recession took place under Presidents Roosevelt and Obama.
. I don’t think presidents make or break recessions all on their own and let’s not forget that Congress controls spending. But since you bring it up I’ll just point out for fun that both of those recessions you mention started under Republican presidents. In fact, 9 of the last 11 recessions started under Republicans. Since 1947, there have been 11 official recessions, totaling 49 recessionary quarters. Of those 49 quarters, just eight occurred under Democratic presidents, compared to 41 under Republicans. So, over the past 65 years, quarters in recession were about five times more common under a Republican president than under a Democratic president. And of course the Great Depression started under a Republican. So if we’re claiming that presidents are responsible for recessions, the only pattern seems to be Republicans cause recessions then a Democrat fixes it while the ousted Republican baselessly claims he would have fixed it faster if only he hadn’t been thrown out of office for having caused it. $1:
Both tried added regulation and economic stimulus with other people's tax money. Neither worked
Not true that neither worked. The US economy has been growing for 11 years. The Bush recession officially ended in June 2009 and the economy started growing again. GDP returned to pre-Bush recession levels in 2011. $1:
There was minor, temporary impetus then the economy returned to the tank. Roosevelt's New Deal was 1936-39 but the economy did not start regaining strength until after Pearl Harbor in 1941.
. The economy was growing and improving that whole time and so was the quality of people’s lives. And war spending is still government spending. Basically the war was a giant government jobs program. $1:
The economy did not truly regain solidity until after both President's terms. This apparently was coincidence (or perhaps magic)
Not true. $1:
However myself and others can't help noticing the fact that both Presidents' terms were followed by times of regulatory easement.
. Not so true regarding FDR. After WW2 it was simply a different world. Society had been transformed. There was still plenty of regulation in Truman’s America though it was not an era of deregulation just different regulation. And it’s still too soon to say whether Trump’s ending laws that prevent financial advisors from ripping off their clients and legalizing all kinds of pollution have been good for the economy. Mostly Trump’s economy has been growing at the same rate as Obamas and now we are on the eve of recession so you don’t really have much to stand on. You exaggerate the economy’s growth under Trump and downplay growth under Obama but their trends are similar. In fact Trump’s trade wars have made his growth more volatile with the market bouncing up and down since he took office. $1:
We would suggest a return of balance and with it a time of greater investor and entrepreneurial confidence.
Investors are most confident when there is no balance and everything is tipped in their favour. Balance means balancing the interests of business elites with the interests of the general public. $1:
Oh and if you're not advocating for higher taxes how are you proposing to pay for all these new government controls you appear to want.
Did I say I don’t want higher taxes? Did I say want new costly regulations? On higher taxes, I don’t oppose it. On regulations, it’s not about more or less it’s about addressing problems that exist. We recently got rid of a bunch of laws prohibiting things like witchcraft for example. Republican Alabama has enforced a 1993 state law prohibiting teaching Yoga stretches in school phys ed classes because it’s ”unchristian”. That’s the kind of new government regulation Republicans like. A big step forward for them just this week, they lifted the ban but lawmakers were sure to still make it illegal for any yoga chants, using any non-English names for poses or the traditional yoga phrase “namaste” 
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In fact let's get to the nitty gritty. Are you saying more government management is what creates wealth? I must be understanding that incorrectly. You appear to be saying it but that would be nuts.
See my first answer.
N_Fiddledog @ Thu Mar 12, 2020 9:30 pm
I can put all that simpler for you. Wealth creates complexity. Complexity creates problems and problems have to be dealt with.
Some regulation is required.
But can you have over-regulation?
I suggest you can and it can create a situation where the cure is worse than the disease.
But now let's deal with this idea you can spend your way out of problems with other people's money and look at these history rewrites you're using as evidence.
The problem with trying to represent the Obama years as recovery is you're asking people who lived through those years not to remember what they lived through.
It was up and down but all through it we were hearing about things like the giant increase of people on food stamps. When unemployment went down we looked a little closer and the numbers of people who had just stopped looking for work was rising like the erection of a pubescent boy with his mother's credit card watching Thots on Twitch. There weren't less people unemployed. There were less people drawing unemployment checks. And stuff like that was everywhere.
Things did start to look like Obama might finally get a recovery about 2015, the year before the end of his last term, and curiously enough the year the GOP took over both houses of congress. No doubt, you can find Progressives drawing lines in graphs from the crappiest years of the Obama years up to 2015 and calling that a consistent recovery but those of us who lived through those years with our eyes open know it was nothing like that.
The depression years were the thirties through to 1941. It was the longest recession without a recovery in American history. There was some up and down and I have no doubt a Progressive somewhere has created a graph where he found spots to start where the down was deepest and a couple data points where there was an up and he's calling that a steady recovery but people who lived through it remember the down. Ask John Steinbeck.
But it was up and down. Mostly down. In fact this occurred the year after the end of the New Deal:
$1:
March 1937 The economy goes through another recession.
After showing some improvement, the economy starts to suffer again when more Americans lose their jobs. Many people begin to lose hope that things will ever get better.
After showing some improvement, the economy starts to suffer again when more Americans lose their jobs. Many people begin to lose hope that things will ever get better.
But here's a fact you're trying hard to ignore. The Two longest recessions in American history without a recovery occurred during regimes that thought they could spend their way out of difficulties. They couldn't.
Economic tanking did not truly end and the economy truly recover until those regimes were gone.
Oh, and Truman was not Roosevelt.
$1:
The end of WWII was supposed to bring prosperity. Indeed, the period from the defeat of Germany and Japan through to the end of the 1960s is largely regarded as a halcyon period of stellar growth and good times for Americans.
But it didn't start out that way without major problems. First, the United States had to switch from a war footing. The change was brutally painful.
Wage and price controls had to go. On top of that, government buying of materials specifically for the war had to end. Out would go what looked like a little like a centrally planned economy, in would come the free market.
But it didn't start out that way without major problems. First, the United States had to switch from a war footing. The change was brutally painful.
Wage and price controls had to go. On top of that, government buying of materials specifically for the war had to end. Out would go what looked like a little like a centrally planned economy, in would come the free market.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/simonconst ... a0f371c224
$1:
Even though he battled two recessions, Truman did not end them with government spending because he didn't believe in Keynesian economic theory. In fact, Truman said, “Nobody can ever convince me that Government can spend a dollar that it’s not got.” By way of explanation, he added, “I’m just a country boy.”
https://www.thebalance.com/president-ha ... es-4585025
BeaverFever @ Fri Mar 13, 2020 7:32 pm
N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:
I can put all that simpler for you. Wealth creates complexity. Complexity creates problems and problems have to be dealt with.
Some regulation is required.
Agree.
Yes
what is with this “other people’s money”? When a customer pays money to a business it becomes the business’s money to then spend. It’s not spending “Other people’s money”. And that applies even when the customer is upset over late fees or interest or other charges they protest. When people and businesses pay taxes it’s the same thing.
Nonsense. You have no such nuanced approach to Trump. The same numbers you use to justify the Trump economy also justify the Obama economy. The same nuanced criticism you applied to Obamas growth numbers also apply to Trump’s numbers You have selective blindness.
[quote-]Things did start to look like Obama might finally get a recovery about 2015, the year before the end of his last term, and curiously enough the year the GOP took over both houses of congress. No doubt, you can find Progressives drawing lines in graphs from the crappiest years of the Obama years up to 2015 and calling that a consistent recovery but those of us who lived through those years with our eyes open know it was nothing like that.. Sorry, you know squat. The crappiest years of Obama were the first years after he took over from the Republican nightmare called Bush.
[wuote]The depression years were the thirties through to 1941. It was the longest recession without a recovery in American history.
. That how long it took to fix the Republican-made disaster. Some regulation is required.
$1:
Agree.
$1:
But can you have over-regulation?
Yes
$1:
suggest you can and it can create a situation where the cure is worse than the disease.
in capitalist democracies such as ours that has not been the case. $1:
But now let's deal with this idea you can spend your way out of problems with other people's money and look at these history rewrites you're using as evidence.
what is with this “other people’s money”? When a customer pays money to a business it becomes the business’s money to then spend. It’s not spending “Other people’s money”. And that applies even when the customer is upset over late fees or interest or other charges they protest. When people and businesses pay taxes it’s the same thing.
$1:
The problem with trying to represent the Obama years as recovery is you're asking people who lived through those years not to remember what they lived through.
It was up and down but all through it we were hearing about things like the giant increase of people on food stamps. When unemployment went down we looked a little closer and the numbers of people who had just stopped looking for work was rising like the erection of a pubescent boy with his mother's credit card watching Thots on Twitch. There weren't less people unemployed. There were less people drawing unemployment checks. And stuff like that was everywhere.
It was up and down but all through it we were hearing about things like the giant increase of people on food stamps. When unemployment went down we looked a little closer and the numbers of people who had just stopped looking for work was rising like the erection of a pubescent boy with his mother's credit card watching Thots on Twitch. There weren't less people unemployed. There were less people drawing unemployment checks. And stuff like that was everywhere.
Nonsense. You have no such nuanced approach to Trump. The same numbers you use to justify the Trump economy also justify the Obama economy. The same nuanced criticism you applied to Obamas growth numbers also apply to Trump’s numbers You have selective blindness.
[quote-]Things did start to look like Obama might finally get a recovery about 2015, the year before the end of his last term, and curiously enough the year the GOP took over both houses of congress. No doubt, you can find Progressives drawing lines in graphs from the crappiest years of the Obama years up to 2015 and calling that a consistent recovery but those of us who lived through those years with our eyes open know it was nothing like that.
[wuote]The depression years were the thirties through to 1941. It was the longest recession without a recovery in American history.
$1:
There was some up and down and I have no doubt a Progressive somewhere has created a graph where he found spots to start where the down was deepest and a couple data points where there was an up and he's calling that a steady recovery but people who lived through it remember the down. Ask John Steinbeck.
. You have no idea what you’re talking about. At any rate when you break something an fail to fix it, you don’t get to complain that you could have fixed it faster than the guy who actually fixed it. $1:
But it was up and down. Mostly down. In fact this occurred the year after the end of the New Deal:
$1:
March 1937 The economy goes through another recession.
After showing some improvement, the economy starts to suffer again when more Americans lose their jobs. Many people begin to lose hope that things will ever get better.
After showing some improvement, the economy starts to suffer again when more Americans lose their jobs. Many people begin to lose hope that things will ever get better.
As I said before, 1937 was the one year year FDR caved to right wing pressure and delivered a balanced budget and it caused a recession. He then went back to deficit spending and the recession ended.
$1:
But here's a fact you're trying hard to ignore. The Two longest recessions in American history without a recovery occurred during regimes that thought they could spend their way out of difficulties. They couldn't.
. No. They could and they did. Here’s the fact you’re missing: the two longest recessions in American history happened under Republican presidents and were ended Democrat presidents. Here’s another fact: almost all recessions in us history started under Republican presidents.
$1:
Oh, and Truman was not Roosevelt.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/simonconst ... a0f371c224
https://www.thebalance.com/president-ha ... es-4585025
$1:
The end of WWII was supposed to bring prosperity. Indeed, the period from the defeat of Germany and Japan through to the end of the 1960s is largely regarded as a halcyon period of stellar growth and good times for Americans.
But it didn't start out that way without major problems. First, the United States had to switch from a war footing. The change was brutally painful.
Wage and price controls had to go. On top of that, government buying of materials specifically for the war had to end. Out would go what looked like a little like a centrally planned economy, in would come the free market.
But it didn't start out that way without major problems. First, the United States had to switch from a war footing. The change was brutally painful.
Wage and price controls had to go. On top of that, government buying of materials specifically for the war had to end. Out would go what looked like a little like a centrally planned economy, in would come the free market.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/simonconst ... a0f371c224
$1:
Even though he battled two recessions, Truman did not end them with government spending because he didn't believe in Keynesian economic theory. In fact, Truman said, “Nobody can ever convince me that Government can spend a dollar that it’s not got.” By way of explanation, he added, “I’m just a country boy.”
https://www.thebalance.com/president-ha ... es-4585025
There you go cherry-picking again. He was more FDR than he was Nixon or Reagan or Bush or Trump. Like all Republicans,he never balanced a budget. Don’t you think it’s funny that your party identity is based largely on the do called emergency to balance the budget and yet no republicans has ever balanced the budget? Trump ramped the deficit by 50%and you haven’t said a peep on this supposedly crucial fact. Wattsupwithat?
$1:
On January 5, 1949, Truman outlined the Fair Deal in his State of the Union. It called for universal health care and raising the minimum wage. It also proposed the Fair Employment Practices Act to make illegal any religious and racial discrimination in hiring. Congress rejected national health insurance but passed the rest of the Fair Deal.
In 1950, Truman added a cost of living adjustment to Social Security payments.
In 1950, Truman added a cost of living adjustment to Social Security payments.
Radical lefty?
N_Fiddledog @ Sat Mar 14, 2020 10:46 am
Capitalism creates wealth. Big government does not. Wealth creates complexity. Some control is necessary in all societal systems. More wealth, more complexity, more control. But that doesn't mean bigger and bigger government is always better.
Only Prog logic can make the irrational jump from capitalism creates wealth and wealth creates a more complex society with more regulations to believing therefore Government creates wealth. It doesn't. It takes advantage of it.
Recognizing some regulation is necessary is not the same thing as regulating everything. Liking the idea of a fire department and a police force is not the same thing as endorsing what Obama did with the EPA.
Oh, and surely you know Truman was Democrat, don't you? Because it sounds like you don't.
N_Fiddledog @ Sat Mar 14, 2020 11:13 am
Also, from 1940 up there were budget surplus years for the Democrats under Truman and Clinton.
There were Republican budget surplus years under Eisenhower, and a year each under Nixon and Bush.
The Republicans ran the House and the Senate during the first 2 budget surplus years of Truman. Both houses of congress were republican when the Clinton economy turned around and showed surpluses.
https://www.davemanuel.com/history-of-d ... states.php
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Presidents
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/80th_Unit ... s_Congress
https://www.answers.com/Q/What_politica ... nton_years
BeaverFever @ Sat Mar 14, 2020 7:57 pm
N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:
Capitalism creates wealth. Big government does not. Wealth creates complexity. Some control is necessary in all societal systems. More wealth, more complexity, more control. But that doesn't mean bigger and bigger government is always better.So you probably wear bigger pants than when you were a kid. Don’t you know bigger isn’t better.? Your pant size increases in absolute terms, but relative to your body size your pants haven’t grown at all, they’ve just kept pace with change to ensure proper fit. Same with government. We don’t currently have a government branch that regulates time machines because they don’t currently exist. If they ever do come to exist government will probably need to regulate it. I don’t think anyone would consider that to be some new intrusion into out lives.
Wealth is created whenever money is borrowed. When a billionaire wants to invest a billion dollars he doesn’t sell off a billion of his existing belongings to raise the funds that would be pointless as he’d be in the exact same place with no new wealth. No he goes to the bank and he borrows the billion. Thw bank conjures the billion out of thin air, its money that didn’t exist up to that point and the economy grows by the amount of the loan. Then he pays it back over time, with interest. It’s the same when governments “borrow”: Money that doesn’t exist is conjured up and paid to private businesses and workers who then spend the money. When a government builds a subway line or does just about any capital project, it’s usually private businesses who get paid the money. All borrowing creates wealth Obviously this wont work if the borrower can’t be trusted to pay back the funds. The 2008 meltdown happened because too many banks and businesses couldn’t pay back what they borrowed and too many homeowners couldn’t either. Almost a decade of deregulation allowed lenders to make riskier loans with less oversight, to turn those loans into investments which could then be sold to banks and brokers while concealing the risk level of those loans, and also allowed traditional banks to invest their customers deposits on these and other risky investments.
https://www.thebalance.com/what-caused- ... is-3306176
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can make the irrational jump from capitalism creates wealth and wealth creates a more complex society with more regulations to believing therefore Government creates wealth. It doesn't. It takes advantage of it.a
Wealth is created whenever money is borrowed. When a billionaire wants to invest a billion dollars he doesn’t sell off a billion of his existing belongings to raise the funds that would be pointless as he’d be in the exact same place with no new wealth. No he goes to the bank and he borrows the billion. Thw bank conjures the billion out of thin air, its money that didn’t exist up to that point and the economy grows by the amount of the loan. Then he pays it back over time, with interest. It’s the same when governments “borrow”: Money that doesn’t exist is conjured up and paid to private businesses and workers who then spend the money. When a government builds a subway line or does just about any capital project, it’s usually private businesses who get paid the money. All borrowing creates wealth Obviously this wont work if the borrower can’t be trusted to pay back the funds. The 2008 meltdown happened because too many banks and businesses couldn’t pay back what they borrowed and too many homeowners couldn’t either. Almost a decade of deregulation allowed lenders to make riskier loans with less oversight, to turn those loans into investments which could then be sold to banks and brokers while concealing the risk level of those loans, and also allowed traditional banks to invest their customers deposits on these and other risky investments.
https://www.thebalance.com/what-caused- ... is-3306176
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Recognizing some regulation is necessary is not the same thing as regulating everything. Liking the idea of a fire department and a police force is not the same thing as endorsing what Obama did with the EPA.
. Nobody said regulate “ everything “. The Obama EPA nonsense Republicans have been spouting just shows how they’re bought and paid for. Ordinary Americans don’t go to bed at night worrying that their air and water are too clean or that their quality standards are too high or that polluters have to go through too much red tape when caught polluting. Yet these are top GOP concerns and they’ve made it a core conservative identity issue with EPA public enemy number 1. Americas environmental regulations are a joke and the pollution problem its ignored for decades has left almost half of its fresh water too polluted for swimming, drinking or fishing and almost two thirds of Americans live in areas where the ambient pollution significantly affects human health Us was also the only wealthy country in the top 10 list of pollution-related deaths. But yeah Republicans think the bigger problem is that polluters who want to poison millions to save a buck or two of their billions have to fill out too many forms first. Well we all have our priorities I guess. $1:
Oh, and surely you know Truman was Democrat, don't you? Because it sounds like you don't.
Of course! You were trying to make it sound like he was some kind of anti- government conservative or something.
Look the final facts that you cant avoid is that Harding, Coolidge and Hoover were 3 Republicans who ruled the us from 1921 to 1932, until after the stock market crash and the start of the Great Depression. As I mentioned previously the poverty rate in 1900 was 80%. The poverty rate was 60 % when Harding took over, the improvements largely due to government spending in WW1 under his predecessor Democrat Woodrow Wilson and the roaring 20s post-war boom that resulted. But still life for the average citizen was more like1900 than it was like the life we know today. In 1932, when FDR took over, the poverty rate had already climbed to 78%. After FDR and his successor Truman ruled for a combined 20 years, the poverty rate was below 30% since 1950 and daily life for the average American resembled the life we know today: indoor plumbing, a car in the driveway, refrigerator, disposable income, regular work hours and standard work week, etc. I have no doubt that had FDR and Truman been Republicans, a similar outcome would have occurred because the war still would have happened and the massive government spending spree still would have occurred and stimulated the economy.
What you’re missing from this conversation so far is that creating wealth is part of the equation but the distribution of wealth also matters, not just for societal outcomes like poverty rates but also for capitalism. Imagine you have two small island countries with capitalist economies, both have the same total wealth and same population: but one has all the wealth in the hands of one man and the rest of the citizens have nothing. On the other island, the wealth is distributed, there are still rich and middle class and poor, but most people have something; very few have absolutely nothing. Which one will grow faster and produce more technological innovation? The second one of course. Because the first one will only provide what the one person with money wants. If he only likes hatchbacks and broccoli then those will be the only cars and vegetables produced and since he’s only one person they won’t produce very much. Meanwhile on the second island,some people want hatchbacks, some want pickup trucks, some want limousines, some want broccoli, some want carrots, some want roast beef.
. DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH = DIVERSITY OF DEMAND = INNOVATION
And because there’s more overall demand, everybody’s at work producing things. So capitalism works better when the wealth is spread around not just shared by a select few. That doesn’t mean communism, where everyone makes the same, that’s the illogical extreme it means some have more and some have less but as many people as possible have at least a couple of dollars to contribute.
Thanos @ Sat Mar 14, 2020 8:39 pm
And except for the increasingly insane American right-wing, and the sad doomed Alberta of the Uterus Control Party, conservatives elsewhere are wholesale abandoning the madness of austerity:
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03 ... p-era.html
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If I were to point out a possible future for a sane post-Trump conservatism, I’d point to one Rishi Sunak. I don’t blame you for not knowing his name yet, but he recently became Boris Johnson’s chancellor of the exchequer, responsible for Britain’s finances and economy, the second most powerful figure in the British government. He’s the grandson of Indian immigrants to the U.K., went to Oxford and Stanford, and became a hedge-funder.
First elected to Parliament in 2015, his handsome smile has been matched only by the perfect fit of his suits. He’s said to have a personal fortune of $250 million, helped by marrying the daughter of one of the richest men in India. A member of a thriving minority group in the U.K., he’s a Hindu, known for lavish parties on his Yorkshire estate, and called by the locals the Maharajah of the Dales. And he isn’t yet 40 years old.
But what really marks him is his abandonment of Thatcherism. He unveiled a budget earlier this week that borrowed at levels no Tory has supported in decades. He pledged a massive infrastructure investment of up to $750 billion over five years. He made no attempt to lower the debt, the key aim of the Cameron and May governments before Johnson. The Financial Times noted that “the youthful chancellor delivered not just an end to austerity. He marked a shift from the low-tax, low-spending Conservatism of Margaret Thatcher towards a new right-wing model, embracing higher spending funded by borrowing. The goal of returning national debt to levels seen before the financial crisis has been jettisoned.” At the same time, “investment in roads, rail, housing, broadband and capital projects as a proportion of the economy will rise to levels not seen since the 1970s.”
Toryism is an intrinsically adaptive political instinct. The Conservative Party shifts right and left as time passes, always eager to hold power, and rarely as ideological as during the Thatcher era. Sunak is also an immigrant success story, the son of small business owners, and a supporter of Brexit. In one stroke, he defies the idea that a post-Brexit U.K. will be reactionary or racist. He co-authored a think-tank study on British racial minorities, “A Portrait of Modern Britain,” and how to empower them. And he is proving how much easier it is for the right to turn left on economics than for the left to turn right on culture.
Yes, the future fiscal outlook is grim — Sunak spent the first third of his budget speech on measures to contain the coronavirus — and disentangling from the E.U. is bound to be economically hazardous. But as a package for a contemporary conservatism, he’s hard to beat.
First elected to Parliament in 2015, his handsome smile has been matched only by the perfect fit of his suits. He’s said to have a personal fortune of $250 million, helped by marrying the daughter of one of the richest men in India. A member of a thriving minority group in the U.K., he’s a Hindu, known for lavish parties on his Yorkshire estate, and called by the locals the Maharajah of the Dales. And he isn’t yet 40 years old.
But what really marks him is his abandonment of Thatcherism. He unveiled a budget earlier this week that borrowed at levels no Tory has supported in decades. He pledged a massive infrastructure investment of up to $750 billion over five years. He made no attempt to lower the debt, the key aim of the Cameron and May governments before Johnson. The Financial Times noted that “the youthful chancellor delivered not just an end to austerity. He marked a shift from the low-tax, low-spending Conservatism of Margaret Thatcher towards a new right-wing model, embracing higher spending funded by borrowing. The goal of returning national debt to levels seen before the financial crisis has been jettisoned.” At the same time, “investment in roads, rail, housing, broadband and capital projects as a proportion of the economy will rise to levels not seen since the 1970s.”
Toryism is an intrinsically adaptive political instinct. The Conservative Party shifts right and left as time passes, always eager to hold power, and rarely as ideological as during the Thatcher era. Sunak is also an immigrant success story, the son of small business owners, and a supporter of Brexit. In one stroke, he defies the idea that a post-Brexit U.K. will be reactionary or racist. He co-authored a think-tank study on British racial minorities, “A Portrait of Modern Britain,” and how to empower them. And he is proving how much easier it is for the right to turn left on economics than for the left to turn right on culture.
Yes, the future fiscal outlook is grim — Sunak spent the first third of his budget speech on measures to contain the coronavirus — and disentangling from the E.U. is bound to be economically hazardous. But as a package for a contemporary conservatism, he’s hard to beat.
I have no doubt that in many respects Boris Johnson is a genuinely unlikable troll, and an outright asshole of the Trump variety. In terms of economics though he's obviously not going to adhere to a burnt-out dogma that's not only obsolete but was a lie to begin with. And that just makes the North America experience that much more awful. While conservatives elsewhere move on to new ideas to lift their nations out of a cascading decline in the standard of living, Canadian and American conservatives will double- and triple-down on the absolute failures of the last forty years. There's a lesson here but unfortunately this particular part of the world is simply far too fucking stupid to ever learn it.
BeaverFever @ Wed Mar 18, 2020 5:01 am
So I guess the main reason Fiddle has abandoned this is the Great Republican flip-flop as Trump rolls out “regulation “ and bailouts to try and limit the damage to the economy as the markets go into free-fall Hannity even trying to compare Trump to FDR. The (until now) evil socialist FDR!
But don’t worry Fiddle even though Republicans are currently crying for massive government intervention to save them and provide what free markets currently can’t, as soon as things get better you’ll get instructions on how to wipe your memory and go back to claiming good-for-nothing government is completely useless. That’s the Republican way.
$1:
Trump's fans were shrugging off COVID-19. Now it's a war, and he's their leader
Alexander Panetta - CBC News
World Analysis
Posted: 3 Hours Ago
USA-TRUMP/MISSOURI
U.S. conservative media have shifted to a far more aggressive tone in talking about coronavirus, which until a few days ago several were deriding as a Democrat exaggeration. Now, like President Donald Trump, Fox News personalities such as Sean Hannity, seen here speaking at a 2018 political rally, are calling it a generational threat. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)
The MAGAverse has gotten the memo: Coronavirus is a bona-fide emergency that requires myriad actions from citizens and government in order to avert catastrophe.
The message to American conservatives is now being driven home in stark terms on President Donald Trump's favourite morning TV show. On Tuesday, the co-hosts of Fox & Friends eschewed their normally cozy seating arrangement on a shared couch and took up positions in distant parts of their studio.
Lest any viewer fail to grasp the new reality, co-host Steve Doocy emphasized it with a public-service announcement to lead off the 6 a.m. show. He cited guidelines from the U.S. Centers For Disease Control to keep six feet of distance from other people in explaining the change in policy.
ADVERTISEMENT
"Stay away from each other," Doocy urged his viewers. "Because you don't want to get infected, and you don't want to spread infection.
"Usually we sit about 18 inches apart," Doocy added, referring to his co-hosts. "[Now] I'm up here on the curvy couch, all by myself."
A few hours later, Trump was at the White House podium promising emergency measures to send money to Americans, and also to bail out the airline industry, on top of numerous other health and economic actions.
What a difference a week makes.
Fox & Friends
The hosts of Trump's favourite morning show, Fox & Friends, usually sit pretty close together on a couch, as in this 2016 photo. Not anymore. On Tuesday, they explained that they would practice social distancing and each appear on camera from different parts of their studio. (Richard Drew/Associated Press)
The whiplash-inducing change in tone from American conservatives comes after prominent voices on the American right derided coronavirus as an exaggerated crisis at best — and at worst, a plot hatched by the media-Democrat industrial complex to take down Trump.
That what-me-worry attitude had potentially lethal real-world effects — with Trump's own fans facing the biggest risk. Republican voters overwhelmingly believe what the president says, according to one new survey, in contrast to the overall public.
ADVERTISEMENT
After weeks of White House messaging downplaying the severity of the threat, it's no surprise several surveys showed Republicans being far likelier to shrug off health warnings.
One indicated Republicans were twice as likely to think that coronavirus news was exaggerated, and likelier to proceed with planned gatherings. Another showed similar findings.
But the latest of these surveys shows a narrower gap in attitudes between the left and right on an issue of basic public health.
Everything changes
What's changed?
For starters, Trump's message.
After COVID-19 case numbers undeniably grew in the U.S., and global markets unquestionably collapsed, and allies like Steve Bannon and Fox News host Tucker Carlson urgently pleaded with him, Trump ramped up his response.
ADVERTISEMENT
Just a few days ago, he was spinning sunny messages of continued economic prosperity that had been central to his re-election strategy.
Trump was saying things about the virus like, "We have it totally under control … it's going to be fine" (Jan. 22), and "We've pretty much shut it down" (Feb. 2). He added that cases would drop to zero "within a couple of days" (Feb. 26) or disappear "like a miracle" (Feb. 27), and was quoting a Fox host approvingly when they blamed CNN for stoking panic.
Now that same Fox host has been sidelined by the network.
And now President Trump is treating the virus for what it is: a historic health, economic and political crisis that is the biggest test of his presidency.
He insists he always took it seriously. For example, he points to his Jan. 31 restriction on travel from China. "I've always known this is a real … pandemic. I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic," Trump said.
ADVERTISEMENT
"I feel the tone is similar."
His favourite TV personalities were certainly striking a different tone. On the morning Fox show, hosts expressed horror at pictures of crowded Florida beaches and suggested the federal government might have to order a shutdown.
Just a few days earlier, the conservative commentariat was mocking the idea of shutting down big events, especially Trump campaign rallies.
FDR and Trump: Wartime leaders
Perhaps the best encapsulation of the before-and-after messaging came from Trump friend and prime-time Fox host Sean Hannity.
On March 9, Hannity bemoaned "mass hysteria," the "newest hoax" from Democrats, and "manufactured, irresponsible, over-the-top rhetoric."
He lumped it in with a variety of other ailments to fret about: "You should be concerned about the flu. You should be concerned about a cold," he said, but added that the media coverage of COVID-19 was "beyond despicable."
Fast-forward a week. In his show this Tuesday, Hannity had a picture of Second World War leader Franklin D. Roosevelt on the screen — and he cast this virus as a war, with Donald J. Trump as America's wartime leader.
He called the coming 15-day period critical in containing the spread. Rest assured, Hannity said, America and its leader are up to the challenge.
"We're going to get through this," Hannity said.
"This country defeated Nazism, fascism, communism, Imperial Japan. We made it through a Great Depression, the Great Recession, 9/11, the Cold War. We're the American people. We face our problems head-on."
A week ago, Trump friend and Fox host Sean Hannity was mostly complaining about the crisis as a media exaggeration. (Fox News television)
A week later, Hannity is calling coronavirus a generational battle that he says America will win, like the Second World War and the Cold War. (Fox News television)
That choice of language brings to mind another lesson of the American presidency, embodied in the trajectory of George H.W. Bush: a tanking economy cost him re-election, but he was popular as a wartime president.
ADVERTISEMENT
In his press conferences Monday, Trump twice referred to the virus as a war effort; five other times, he called it an "enemy" to defeat.
Other partisan allies have also backpedalled from their laissez-faire messages that downplayed the virus threat.
The Republican governor of Oklahoma deleted a weekend tweet where he promised to keep visiting restaurants — on Monday, he issued an emergency declaration, and on Tuesday he shut schools.
Last weekend, senior Republican congressman Devin Nunes told people to stop panicking and go out: "If you're healthy, you and your family, it's a great time to just go out. Go to a local restaurant … don't run to the grocery store and buy $4,000 of food, go to your local pub."
The next day Nunes blamed "media freaks" for distorting his message. He said he was simply encouraging people to go get takeout.
ADVERTISEMENT
When it comes to brushing off urgency measures, however, nobody takes a back seat to Rush Limbaugh.
U.S. President Donald Trump awards Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh with the Presidential Medal of Freedom during the state of the union address. 2:10
The right-wing radio host spent days ridiculing responses to the virus. In one episode alone, on March 12, he called sports leagues "wimps" for shutting down; promised to keep traveling; accused Democrats of conspiring to shut down Trump rallies; also accused Democrats of trying to use the virus as an excuse to cancel the rest of their presidential primaries; urged listeners to stop watching the news; and said the deaths are being blown out of proportion.
"How many deaths are we talking about? And yet we are reacting this way?," Limbaugh fumed. "We're wrecking the United States economy … I don't like all these shutdowns. I think this is so overblown. But remember, this is political."
Things were different just a month ago, in those simpler times, when Trump was awarding Limbaugh the presidential medal of freedom.
Alexander Panetta is a Washington-based correspondent for CBC News who has covered American politics and Canada-U.S. issues since 2013. He previously worked in Ottawa, Quebec City and internationally, reporting on politics, conflict, disaster and the Montreal Expos.
CBC's Journalistic Standards and Practices
Report Typo or Error
Alexander Panetta - CBC News
World Analysis
Posted: 3 Hours Ago
USA-TRUMP/MISSOURI
U.S. conservative media have shifted to a far more aggressive tone in talking about coronavirus, which until a few days ago several were deriding as a Democrat exaggeration. Now, like President Donald Trump, Fox News personalities such as Sean Hannity, seen here speaking at a 2018 political rally, are calling it a generational threat. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)
The MAGAverse has gotten the memo: Coronavirus is a bona-fide emergency that requires myriad actions from citizens and government in order to avert catastrophe.
The message to American conservatives is now being driven home in stark terms on President Donald Trump's favourite morning TV show. On Tuesday, the co-hosts of Fox & Friends eschewed their normally cozy seating arrangement on a shared couch and took up positions in distant parts of their studio.
Lest any viewer fail to grasp the new reality, co-host Steve Doocy emphasized it with a public-service announcement to lead off the 6 a.m. show. He cited guidelines from the U.S. Centers For Disease Control to keep six feet of distance from other people in explaining the change in policy.
ADVERTISEMENT
"Stay away from each other," Doocy urged his viewers. "Because you don't want to get infected, and you don't want to spread infection.
"Usually we sit about 18 inches apart," Doocy added, referring to his co-hosts. "[Now] I'm up here on the curvy couch, all by myself."
A few hours later, Trump was at the White House podium promising emergency measures to send money to Americans, and also to bail out the airline industry, on top of numerous other health and economic actions.
What a difference a week makes.
Fox & Friends
The hosts of Trump's favourite morning show, Fox & Friends, usually sit pretty close together on a couch, as in this 2016 photo. Not anymore. On Tuesday, they explained that they would practice social distancing and each appear on camera from different parts of their studio. (Richard Drew/Associated Press)
The whiplash-inducing change in tone from American conservatives comes after prominent voices on the American right derided coronavirus as an exaggerated crisis at best — and at worst, a plot hatched by the media-Democrat industrial complex to take down Trump.
That what-me-worry attitude had potentially lethal real-world effects — with Trump's own fans facing the biggest risk. Republican voters overwhelmingly believe what the president says, according to one new survey, in contrast to the overall public.
ADVERTISEMENT
After weeks of White House messaging downplaying the severity of the threat, it's no surprise several surveys showed Republicans being far likelier to shrug off health warnings.
One indicated Republicans were twice as likely to think that coronavirus news was exaggerated, and likelier to proceed with planned gatherings. Another showed similar findings.
But the latest of these surveys shows a narrower gap in attitudes between the left and right on an issue of basic public health.
Everything changes
What's changed?
For starters, Trump's message.
After COVID-19 case numbers undeniably grew in the U.S., and global markets unquestionably collapsed, and allies like Steve Bannon and Fox News host Tucker Carlson urgently pleaded with him, Trump ramped up his response.
ADVERTISEMENT
Just a few days ago, he was spinning sunny messages of continued economic prosperity that had been central to his re-election strategy.
Trump was saying things about the virus like, "We have it totally under control … it's going to be fine" (Jan. 22), and "We've pretty much shut it down" (Feb. 2). He added that cases would drop to zero "within a couple of days" (Feb. 26) or disappear "like a miracle" (Feb. 27), and was quoting a Fox host approvingly when they blamed CNN for stoking panic.
Now that same Fox host has been sidelined by the network.
And now President Trump is treating the virus for what it is: a historic health, economic and political crisis that is the biggest test of his presidency.
He insists he always took it seriously. For example, he points to his Jan. 31 restriction on travel from China. "I've always known this is a real … pandemic. I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic," Trump said.
ADVERTISEMENT
"I feel the tone is similar."
His favourite TV personalities were certainly striking a different tone. On the morning Fox show, hosts expressed horror at pictures of crowded Florida beaches and suggested the federal government might have to order a shutdown.
Just a few days earlier, the conservative commentariat was mocking the idea of shutting down big events, especially Trump campaign rallies.
FDR and Trump: Wartime leaders
Perhaps the best encapsulation of the before-and-after messaging came from Trump friend and prime-time Fox host Sean Hannity.
On March 9, Hannity bemoaned "mass hysteria," the "newest hoax" from Democrats, and "manufactured, irresponsible, over-the-top rhetoric."
He lumped it in with a variety of other ailments to fret about: "You should be concerned about the flu. You should be concerned about a cold," he said, but added that the media coverage of COVID-19 was "beyond despicable."
Fast-forward a week. In his show this Tuesday, Hannity had a picture of Second World War leader Franklin D. Roosevelt on the screen — and he cast this virus as a war, with Donald J. Trump as America's wartime leader.
He called the coming 15-day period critical in containing the spread. Rest assured, Hannity said, America and its leader are up to the challenge.
"We're going to get through this," Hannity said.
"This country defeated Nazism, fascism, communism, Imperial Japan. We made it through a Great Depression, the Great Recession, 9/11, the Cold War. We're the American people. We face our problems head-on."
A week ago, Trump friend and Fox host Sean Hannity was mostly complaining about the crisis as a media exaggeration. (Fox News television)
A week later, Hannity is calling coronavirus a generational battle that he says America will win, like the Second World War and the Cold War. (Fox News television)
That choice of language brings to mind another lesson of the American presidency, embodied in the trajectory of George H.W. Bush: a tanking economy cost him re-election, but he was popular as a wartime president.
ADVERTISEMENT
In his press conferences Monday, Trump twice referred to the virus as a war effort; five other times, he called it an "enemy" to defeat.
Other partisan allies have also backpedalled from their laissez-faire messages that downplayed the virus threat.
The Republican governor of Oklahoma deleted a weekend tweet where he promised to keep visiting restaurants — on Monday, he issued an emergency declaration, and on Tuesday he shut schools.
Last weekend, senior Republican congressman Devin Nunes told people to stop panicking and go out: "If you're healthy, you and your family, it's a great time to just go out. Go to a local restaurant … don't run to the grocery store and buy $4,000 of food, go to your local pub."
The next day Nunes blamed "media freaks" for distorting his message. He said he was simply encouraging people to go get takeout.
ADVERTISEMENT
When it comes to brushing off urgency measures, however, nobody takes a back seat to Rush Limbaugh.
U.S. President Donald Trump awards Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh with the Presidential Medal of Freedom during the state of the union address. 2:10
The right-wing radio host spent days ridiculing responses to the virus. In one episode alone, on March 12, he called sports leagues "wimps" for shutting down; promised to keep traveling; accused Democrats of conspiring to shut down Trump rallies; also accused Democrats of trying to use the virus as an excuse to cancel the rest of their presidential primaries; urged listeners to stop watching the news; and said the deaths are being blown out of proportion.
"How many deaths are we talking about? And yet we are reacting this way?," Limbaugh fumed. "We're wrecking the United States economy … I don't like all these shutdowns. I think this is so overblown. But remember, this is political."
Things were different just a month ago, in those simpler times, when Trump was awarding Limbaugh the presidential medal of freedom.
Alexander Panetta is a Washington-based correspondent for CBC News who has covered American politics and Canada-U.S. issues since 2013. He previously worked in Ottawa, Quebec City and internationally, reporting on politics, conflict, disaster and the Montreal Expos.
CBC's Journalistic Standards and Practices
Report Typo or Error
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.5501024
Ooh look at all the Marxist-Leninist Prog-comm socialism that Trump and Republicans are rolling out Fiddle! What do you anti-government conservatives have to say for yourselves now?:
$1:
Trump’s economic rescue package could approach $1 trillion
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a massive federal effort, President Donald Trump asked Congress to speed emergency checks to Americans, enlisted the military for MASH-like hospitals and implored ordinary people — particularly socially active millennials — to do their part by staying home to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
His proposed economic package alone could approach $1 trillion, a rescue initiative not seen since the Great Recession. Trump wants checks sent to the public within two weeks and is urging Congress to pass the eye-popping stimulus package in a matter of days.
As analysts warn the country is surely entering a recession, the government is grappling with an enormous political undertaking with echoes of the 2008 financial crisis.
At the Capitol on Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell vowed the Senate would not adjourn until the work was done.
“Obviously, we need to act,” McConnell said. “We’re not leaving town until we have constructed and passed another bill.”
But first, McConnell said, the Senate will vote on a House-passed package of sick pay, emergency food and free testing, putting it back on track for Trump’s signature — despite Republican objections. “Gag, and vote for it anyway,” he advised colleagues.
It was a signal of what the GOP leader called the “herculean” task ahead.
Overnight, the White House sent lawmakers a $46 billion emergency funding request to boost medical care for military service members and veterans, fund production of vaccines and medicines, build 13 quarantine centers at the southern border for migrants, make federal buildings safer, and reimburse Amtrak for $500 million in anticipated revenue losses, among other purposes.
The Trump request also reverses cuts to the Centers for Disease Control and National Institutes of Health that Trump proposed in his February budget for next year and would create a $3 billion fund for unanticipated needs.
Senators gathered at an otherwise shut-down Capitol as Americans across the country were implored to heed advice and avoid crowds. Young adults, in particular, are being urged to quit going out because even seemingly healthy people can be spreading the virus that causes the COVID-19 illness.
Even so, presidential primary elections unfolded in Florida, Illinois and Arizona. Ohio’s was called off hours before the polls were set to open.
After a savage drop at the start of the week, the stock market rose as Trump and aides sketched out elements of the economic rescue package at a briefing. Economists doubted that would be enough to stop millions of jobs losses, even if in the short term.
Bigger than the $700 billion 2008 bank bailout or the nearly $800 billion 2009 recovery act, the White House proposal aims to provide a massive tax cut for wage-earners, $50 billion for the airline industry and $250 billion for small businesses. Two people familiar with he package described it to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.
The amount that would be sent out in checks Americans is not yet disclosed. The White House said it liked GOP Sen. Mitt Romney’s idea for $1,000 checks, though not necessarily at that sum and not for wealthier people.
“This is a very unique situation,” said Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, exiting a private briefing of Senate Republicans. “We’ve put a proposal on that table that would attract a trillion dollars into the economy.”
One GOP leader, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, told reporters afterward it “could be” up to $1 trillion.
Senate Democrats produced their own $750 billion proposal, which includes $400 billion to shore up hospitals and other emergency operations in response to the global pandemic and $350 billion to bolster the safety net with unemployment checks and other aid to Americans.
“The aid has to be workers first,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, not what happened in 2008, when the big banks took precedence. Schumer also said it’s time to call out the National Guard to provide security as communities reel from the crisis.
The slow-moving Congress is being asked to approve the far-reaching economic rescue as it tries to rise to the occasion of these fast times.
A roster of America’s big and small industries — airlines, hotels, retailers and even casinos — lined up for hoped-for aid.
For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia.
The vast majority of people recover from the new virus. According to the World Health Organization, people with mild illness recover in about two weeks, while those with more severe illness may take three to six weeks to recover.
Still, health officials are urging Americans to stay home to prevent an onslaught of cases that could overwhelm hospitals as happened in Italy, among the countries hardest hit.
As Congress considered aid, the Pentagon on Tuesday said it would provide 5 million respirator masks and 2,000 specialized ventilators to federal health authorities. And Medicare was immediately expanding coverage for telemedicine nationwide to help seniors with health problems stay home to avoid infection.
More than two dozen Senate Democrats urged Trump to invoke the Korean War-era Defense Production Act to increase production of masks, ventilators and respirators, as well as expand hospital capacity to combat the coronavirus. Federal officials said the administration is working with the Army Corps of Engineers to see about erecting temporary hospitals, as is done in the military, to handle an expected surge of cases.
Schumer compared the government response needed to a wartime mobilization.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who marshaled the earlier package through a bipartisan vote last week, fielded a call from Mnuchin on Tuesday morning and another from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell in the afternoon, encouraged by the Fed chairman’s perspective that Congress could think big with interest rates at nearly zero.
In the call with Mnuchin, she and Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., chairman of the House Transportation committee, “emphasized that protecting workers’ paychecks and benefits was their top priority, and that immediate action was needed,” said Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill on Twitter.
The debate is sure to revive the sharp divisions over the costly bank bailout and economic recovery of the Obama and Bush eras.
Much about the proposed checks is not known, such as whether the amount would vary by the income of the recipient or whether everyone would get the same sum. Mnuchin said “it’s clear we don’t need to send people who make $1 million a year checks, OK?”
Economists from both parties endorsed mailing checks of at least $1,000 to all American households as the quickest way to offset the sharp slowdown in economic activity.
“We need to pay people to stay at home,” said Heidi Shierholz, a senior policy analyst at the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think-tank. The group predicted that without a huge stimulus package, the U.S. economy could lose three million jobs by this summer.
Still, some GOP senators were skeptical about the massive aid on the table. “I’m going to be very leery of doing something like in 2008,” said Indiana Republican Sen. Mike Braun.
“Right now, the plan around here is basically to just to start shoveling money out of a helicopter,” said Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb. “This is a bad idea. … We don’t need a policy where Washington, D.C., handpicks winners and losers.”
Despite federal guidelines against so many people gathering, senators had no choice but to convene. Legislating cannot be done from home.
But late Tuesday, another lawmaker, Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., announced he would self-quarantine after contact with a constituent who later tested positive for coronavirus.
___
Associated Press writers Andrew Taylor, Matthew Daly, Martin Crutsinger, Colleen Long, Chris Rugaber, Mary Clare Jalonick and Kevin Freking in Washington contributed to this report.
___
The Associated Press receives support for health and science coverage from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a massive federal effort, President Donald Trump asked Congress to speed emergency checks to Americans, enlisted the military for MASH-like hospitals and implored ordinary people — particularly socially active millennials — to do their part by staying home to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
His proposed economic package alone could approach $1 trillion, a rescue initiative not seen since the Great Recession. Trump wants checks sent to the public within two weeks and is urging Congress to pass the eye-popping stimulus package in a matter of days.
As analysts warn the country is surely entering a recession, the government is grappling with an enormous political undertaking with echoes of the 2008 financial crisis.
At the Capitol on Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell vowed the Senate would not adjourn until the work was done.
“Obviously, we need to act,” McConnell said. “We’re not leaving town until we have constructed and passed another bill.”
But first, McConnell said, the Senate will vote on a House-passed package of sick pay, emergency food and free testing, putting it back on track for Trump’s signature — despite Republican objections. “Gag, and vote for it anyway,” he advised colleagues.
It was a signal of what the GOP leader called the “herculean” task ahead.
Overnight, the White House sent lawmakers a $46 billion emergency funding request to boost medical care for military service members and veterans, fund production of vaccines and medicines, build 13 quarantine centers at the southern border for migrants, make federal buildings safer, and reimburse Amtrak for $500 million in anticipated revenue losses, among other purposes.
The Trump request also reverses cuts to the Centers for Disease Control and National Institutes of Health that Trump proposed in his February budget for next year and would create a $3 billion fund for unanticipated needs.
Senators gathered at an otherwise shut-down Capitol as Americans across the country were implored to heed advice and avoid crowds. Young adults, in particular, are being urged to quit going out because even seemingly healthy people can be spreading the virus that causes the COVID-19 illness.
Even so, presidential primary elections unfolded in Florida, Illinois and Arizona. Ohio’s was called off hours before the polls were set to open.
After a savage drop at the start of the week, the stock market rose as Trump and aides sketched out elements of the economic rescue package at a briefing. Economists doubted that would be enough to stop millions of jobs losses, even if in the short term.
Bigger than the $700 billion 2008 bank bailout or the nearly $800 billion 2009 recovery act, the White House proposal aims to provide a massive tax cut for wage-earners, $50 billion for the airline industry and $250 billion for small businesses. Two people familiar with he package described it to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.
The amount that would be sent out in checks Americans is not yet disclosed. The White House said it liked GOP Sen. Mitt Romney’s idea for $1,000 checks, though not necessarily at that sum and not for wealthier people.
“This is a very unique situation,” said Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, exiting a private briefing of Senate Republicans. “We’ve put a proposal on that table that would attract a trillion dollars into the economy.”
One GOP leader, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, told reporters afterward it “could be” up to $1 trillion.
Senate Democrats produced their own $750 billion proposal, which includes $400 billion to shore up hospitals and other emergency operations in response to the global pandemic and $350 billion to bolster the safety net with unemployment checks and other aid to Americans.
“The aid has to be workers first,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, not what happened in 2008, when the big banks took precedence. Schumer also said it’s time to call out the National Guard to provide security as communities reel from the crisis.
The slow-moving Congress is being asked to approve the far-reaching economic rescue as it tries to rise to the occasion of these fast times.
A roster of America’s big and small industries — airlines, hotels, retailers and even casinos — lined up for hoped-for aid.
For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia.
The vast majority of people recover from the new virus. According to the World Health Organization, people with mild illness recover in about two weeks, while those with more severe illness may take three to six weeks to recover.
Still, health officials are urging Americans to stay home to prevent an onslaught of cases that could overwhelm hospitals as happened in Italy, among the countries hardest hit.
As Congress considered aid, the Pentagon on Tuesday said it would provide 5 million respirator masks and 2,000 specialized ventilators to federal health authorities. And Medicare was immediately expanding coverage for telemedicine nationwide to help seniors with health problems stay home to avoid infection.
More than two dozen Senate Democrats urged Trump to invoke the Korean War-era Defense Production Act to increase production of masks, ventilators and respirators, as well as expand hospital capacity to combat the coronavirus. Federal officials said the administration is working with the Army Corps of Engineers to see about erecting temporary hospitals, as is done in the military, to handle an expected surge of cases.
Schumer compared the government response needed to a wartime mobilization.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who marshaled the earlier package through a bipartisan vote last week, fielded a call from Mnuchin on Tuesday morning and another from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell in the afternoon, encouraged by the Fed chairman’s perspective that Congress could think big with interest rates at nearly zero.
In the call with Mnuchin, she and Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., chairman of the House Transportation committee, “emphasized that protecting workers’ paychecks and benefits was their top priority, and that immediate action was needed,” said Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill on Twitter.
The debate is sure to revive the sharp divisions over the costly bank bailout and economic recovery of the Obama and Bush eras.
Much about the proposed checks is not known, such as whether the amount would vary by the income of the recipient or whether everyone would get the same sum. Mnuchin said “it’s clear we don’t need to send people who make $1 million a year checks, OK?”
Economists from both parties endorsed mailing checks of at least $1,000 to all American households as the quickest way to offset the sharp slowdown in economic activity.
“We need to pay people to stay at home,” said Heidi Shierholz, a senior policy analyst at the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think-tank. The group predicted that without a huge stimulus package, the U.S. economy could lose three million jobs by this summer.
Still, some GOP senators were skeptical about the massive aid on the table. “I’m going to be very leery of doing something like in 2008,” said Indiana Republican Sen. Mike Braun.
“Right now, the plan around here is basically to just to start shoveling money out of a helicopter,” said Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb. “This is a bad idea. … We don’t need a policy where Washington, D.C., handpicks winners and losers.”
Despite federal guidelines against so many people gathering, senators had no choice but to convene. Legislating cannot be done from home.
But late Tuesday, another lawmaker, Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., announced he would self-quarantine after contact with a constituent who later tested positive for coronavirus.
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Associated Press writers Andrew Taylor, Matthew Daly, Martin Crutsinger, Colleen Long, Chris Rugaber, Mary Clare Jalonick and Kevin Freking in Washington contributed to this report.
___
The Associated Press receives support for health and science coverage from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
https://apnews.com/0f6c483ce758c5d3ac6db46a6cf9c4e8
PublicAnimalNo9 @ Wed Mar 18, 2020 8:40 am
BeaverFever BeaverFever:
uwish uwish:
I also love how concern for what we leave future generations doesn’t ever seem to extend to polluted rivers and clearcut forests and leaving them a toxic hellacaped environment.
Yeah! GO GREEN ENERGY AND GREEN TECH!
DrCaleb @ Wed Mar 18, 2020 9:14 am
PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:
BeaverFever BeaverFever:
uwish uwish:
I also love how concern for what we leave future generations doesn’t ever seem to extend to polluted rivers and clearcut forests and leaving them a toxic hellacaped environment.
Yeah! GO GREEN ENERGY AND GREEN TECH!
And the computer you are using right now.
PublicAnimalNo9 @ Wed Mar 18, 2020 9:48 am
DrCaleb DrCaleb:
[
And the computer you are using right now.
Is over a decade old.
And the computer you are using right now.
BeaverFever @ Wed Mar 18, 2020 9:55 am
PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:
BeaverFever BeaverFever:
uwish uwish:
I also love how concern for what we leave future generations doesn’t ever seem to extend to polluted rivers and clearcut forests and leaving them a toxic hellacaped environment.
Yeah! GO GREEN ENERGY AND GREEN TECH!
Yeah the Mongolian mining companies are not in anyway green, they just mine materials in demand and don’t really care what they’re being used for. They’re just destroying that environment as polluters who don’t give a flying Fuck. Just like conservatives and their polluter buddies don’t give a flying fuck. They’re on your side. And they can brought to heel later before they establish the same global clout as oil and gas has now.