2 hours ago, mlmcleod said:

The Trump administration has failed the American public from the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis.  He is betting that the $1200 checks will buy enough votes to get him re-elected.  I am still shocked that any American could believe anything he says.

While everything you say is true, he may still win re-election. That's just how bad the Democrat presumptive nominee is.

3 hours ago, Cryingdick said:

 

They are ultimately responsible to make their own decisions. If Trump was stupid and they followed they are also stupid. They waited way too long in hindsight. At the time 99% of the population thought this wouldn't go this far. Most of us outside the cities not cramped up into 10 sql studios are also not really worried.

 

It seems to only be a huge problem in these big cities that were managed so amazingly.

What you see in the cities will be coming to you soon enough. Good Luck!

So, the House just passed the Stimulus Bill by a voice vote, so there is no accountability for any member.

7 minutes ago, bristolboy said:

It is interesting that you mention Amazon though not for reason you came up with. One huge problem with this loan program is Trump: he is not hesitant to use his power to punish corporations whom he deems are against him. He took a big dislike to Amazon because Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post. A judge has just ruled that the award of a 10 billion Pentagon contract to Microsoft instead of to Amazon was improperly awarded.

U.S. judge says Amazon likely to succeed on key argument in contract

challenge

 

Amazon, which had been seen as a front-runner to win the contract, filed a lawsuit in November just weeks after the contract was awarded to Microsoft. Trump has publicly derided Amazon head Jeff Bezos and repeatedly criticized the giant online retailer.

The Amazon lawsuit said the Defense Department’s decision was full of “egregious errors,” which were a result of “improper pressure from President Donald Trump.”

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-pentagon/u-s-judge-says-amazon-likely-to-succeed-on-key-argument-in-contract-challenge-idUSKBN20U0QC

Can't disagree with that. For me it falls under the heading of Theomachy.

17 minutes ago, bristolboy said:

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/23/democrats-slush-fund-republican-rescue-package-143565

Pull out and take a wider view. The $4 + Trillion lending facility is for mega corporations to buy out their small and midsize competitors whose revenue has gone to zero and do not have the same access to capital. Hopefully we can get a roll call vote on this bill. There was no "good fight" about that at all.

Just like corporations consolidated power after the Great Recession, to the detriment of 10's of millions of gig, part time and contract workers, corporations will come our of this crisis MUCH more powerful than before.

Hey, did you donate to the fund for Amazon workers? Didn't see anything on the WaPo about it. They know who signs their paychecks and controls their career prospects.

https://web.archive.org/web/20200320133040/https://amazonrelieffund.org/

2 minutes ago, bristolboy said:

Another case of both sidesism. We do know that the democrats held out for greater relief for the unemployed and for hospitals and emergency health care. We also know that they killed an attempt made on behalf of Mnuchin to allow him to conceal the loans he made to big corporations for up to 6 months and to make them without outside approval.

Right it was both sides who took the size of the corporate largesse as a given. That was never a point of contention. The headline $500 Billion, which is bad enough is just a tiny part of it.

1 hour ago, bristolboy said:

I've been thinking about it and maybe you're right, Maybe there is something wrong with NPR and PBS getting millions in a health care crisis. Pretty damned sneaky! Thank goodness the honorable Republican ladies and gentlemen in the Senate would never stoop to exploiting a national crisis to help a special interest group...oh wait a minute...a report is coming in now...

Bonanza for Rich Real Estate Investors, Tucked Into Stimulus Package

A small change to tax policy could hand $170 billion in tax savings to real estate tycoons.

Senate Republicans inserted an easy-to-overlook provision on page 203 of the 880-page bill that would permit wealthy investors to use losses generated by real estate to minimize their taxes on profits from things like investments in the stock market.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/business/coronavirus-real-estate-investors-stimulus.html

 

Can anyone think of a very prominent real estate tycoon who would benefit from such a bill?

You should probably dig a little deeper into who the good guys and who the bad guys are. By all insider accounts, leadership of both parties went straight to the $4.25 Trillion corporate largesse over lower ranking Democrat and even some Republican Senators, who got run over on this deal. Any oversight is primarily after the fact which is meaningless. Plenty of oversight and red tape though for small businesses looking for relief.

39 minutes ago, Opl said:

If we can learn from what Italian doctors warn us of

Quote " Lockdown is paramount: social distancing reduced transmission by about 60% in China. But a further peak will likely occur when restrictive measures are relaxed to avoid major economic impact. "

from the link below:

"Pandemic solutions are required for the entire population, not only for hospitals. Western health care systems have been built around the concept of patient-centered care, but an epidemic requires a change of perspective toward a concept of community-centered care. "

The segment with Bill Gates is very good:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/26/app-news-section/full-coronavirus-town-hall-march-26-2020-app/index.html

Quote

 

Exclusive: Chinese doctors say Wuhan coronavirus reinfection even deadlier

Instead of creating immunity the virus can reportedly reinfect an individual and hasten fatal heart attack

 

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3876197

 

22 hours ago, bristolboy said:

Not quite. Your assumption rests on the fact that Republicans would have given way on the corporate bailouts in the first round of negotiations in order to simply get payments to the American public. And that corporate bailouts would be the subject of the second round of negotiations. What is there in the way Republicans have consistently favored the wealthy and the powerful (see last piece of tax legislation) that makes you believe that they would ever have relented and let a simple grant of money to Americans go through?

Apparently Republicans were never threatened with giving way on the payments as Democrats were in wide agreement. The only negotiating point was the oversight. HILL.TV pretty good today.       

https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/489602-rising-march-26-2020

5 hours ago, RickBradford said:

There is new research from Oxford University suggesting that half the population in most countries has been infected already. We just didn't know it, because people weren't getting very sick, and there were no specific tests for Covid. They base this theory on the trajectory of infections and deaths in previous pandemics.

 

If what they suggest is borne out (and I stress that I am not in a position to either support or oppose their research), then the following happens.

 

* The infection rate peaks within 2 weeks at most.

 

* The mortality (and serious illness) rate is much lower than currently being suggested.

 

They say the easy way to test their theory is to submit large numbers of people to a Covid antibody test. That would show how many people had already contracted and combated the virus. In the current environment of fear, those tests seem unlikely to take place.

 

The research paper can be found at : https://www.dropbox.com/s/oxmu2rwsnhi9j9c/Draft-COVID-19-Model (13).pdf

It's an interesting theory but I don't think it's the environment of fear that's not allowing tests to take place. I think it's not taking place because to date there is no test, but I understand one will be available soon. How long it will take to produce hundreds of millions or billions of such tests and conduct the tests, I have no idea, but I imagine that will take awhile so current methodologies to arrest transmission will have to continue for the time being I would think.

50 minutes ago, bristolboy said:

American corporations are just saying that because they hate Trump! They'd rather go broke than say a good word about POTUS. Haters gonna hate!!!

No, they're just saying that because if by some miracle they could be back to work by Easter, that precludes another trip back to the trough.

48 minutes ago, bristolboy said:

And do you have the integrity to acknowledge that the Republicans were also stuffing the bill with their pet projects?

And of course the difference between most of the Democrats' pet projects and those of Republicans is that their would have benefited ordinary Americans the most and not the 1 percent.

I do. Common ground, yeah!

4 minutes ago, Nyezhov said:

I havent seen that, what channels?

CNN, Al Jazeera. I mostly check CNN though, but not the shows with a host, except for Chris Cuomo.

2 hours ago, Solinvictus said:

Assume he is an ex-reality TV show star? That is a fact... But, okay, I respect your view. Not flawed, I told it how it is. Make a counter to it. Did I mention the such has been talked about for awhile now. Might want to expand your sources for viewing what is going on in the country. Of course some people like his hair too, but hey that's another assumption according to you right?

 

So why do they support him? I'm dying to know.

 

Due to finding out some quite astounding information this past evening, I actually appreciate Trump more despite all his poor qualities.

 

Have you noticed that every time a news story quoting Trump is broadcast now. that the anchor turns to a "fact checker" to tell us what, if anything, he has said, is true? It would be hilarious in a context other than a global pandemic.

6 minutes ago, bristolboy said:

With no guarantee that they would ever get those supplemental payments? Eventually their bills would come due.

OK, we through now?  

2 minutes ago, bristolboy said:

Do you know  that low wage Americans have virtually no savings? What do they do for food and shelter until then negotiations are "hashed out."? If, in fact, they would get hashed out.

Yeah, you're making my point. They should have had money last week. Food first, bills second. Most utilities, banks, mortgage servicers have offered relief, either through suspension of late payments or suspension of payments altogether. I myself have offered over $20,000 in rent relief (not deferral) to my tenants. Only half have taken me up on it though as some are "essential" businesses and still open.

Just now, bristolboy said:

Actually the most important part of the bill is not the citizens' benefit but the unemployment benefit. And that's what the Republicans were fighting against and a few still are fighting against.

Yeah, but the "additional" unemployment benefit is on top of regular unemployment benefits and the stipend too. It certainly could have been sent in full, applied to a retroactive date once hashed out. The additional money would not have been lost to these people.

5 hours ago, unsubscribe said:

Agree 100%, now as a non boomer how the f*&k do I navigate my way to prosperity out of this mess before global warming takes us all?

You need to hope that every asset you ever bought goes up in value through inflation and that every expense you have goes down through deflation. You may have caught the wrong stretch of the K wave for that though. Sorry.

7 minutes ago, bristolboy said:

Total B.S. Why do you keep sticking to that both-sidesism narrative? 4 Republican Senators are threatening to delay the bill because of unemployment benefits that they deem are too generous. That's all that's holding it up. 

That's all that's holding up a still bad bill.  They should have taken care of the people first in a clean bill. They could have fought over this one a lot longer without that gun to the people's heads.  Food for families grouped with corporate pork? Why? Democrats could have taken a MUCH harder line against the corporate largesse if the citizen's benefit had been decoupled from the start. Think about it.

The real story is, because both sides failed to send a a clean emergency UBI Bill to the White House and instead chose to slug it out over all their sacred cows while holding a gun to poor and working class people's heads, the citizenry is once again <deleted>.