Coronavirus Outbreak...

[carpedm9587]

From what I gather, not least from the link in your post is that actually postponing election day has all sorts of issues, in that by 21/1 time is up, so to speak.

One issue is very likely to be how voting will take place if the virus is still a present threat, and how lawmakers can potentially make it harder for people to vote for partisan advantage. I could point out that Republicans obviously have form here, a recent example (which thankfully backfired) was the GOP trying to force a low-turnout spring election in Wisconsin.

I wonder if they are (or will be) considering all of the variables. The way I count it, if there were to be no elections in 11/3 and the clock were to run out, 1/3 of the senate would be gone. The Dems are defending 11 seats and the Republicans 23. There is also one Dem retiring and I am not sure how that impacts the election issue. Let's assume they too are gone when the current congressional term ends. The Senate is currently 53 (Republicans) to 45+2 (Dems+Independents). Reduce these numbers by the vacated seats and you have 30 Republicans and 33+2 Dems+Ind., giving Democrats control of the Senate and the right to elect a President Pro Temp. Since the 117th Congress convenes on January 3rd, the Dems could elect one of their number President Pro Temp well before the presidency ends, who would then be the highest existing elected official in the line of succession on January 21st, when Trump's term expires. Tradition has them electing the oldest member of the majority party to that position, which would be Dianne Feinstein.

President Feinstein? Somehow, I just don't see that sequence of events playing out...


ETA: What is more likely, and a little frightening, is the possibility that what the Republicans will do is narrowly target states where Dems are at risk to tightly constrain voting using the coronavirus as an excuse. Dems tend to win when there is a high turnout, by virtue of the fact that they tend to have the numbers. Applied selectively, that approach could a) keep the Senate in Republican hands, b) possibly flip the House, and c) possibly put Trump back in office. Given their history with voter suppression - I suggest this is the most likely scenario.

[carpedm9587]

People manage to get to Walmart to not buy toilet paper - the election sites will be able to adjust.

Possibly. But that is not what played out in Wisconsin - so there is some cause for concern, IMO.

[Mountain Man]

The point was not that it "actually happened."

On the contrary, that is precisely the point.

[Cow Poke]

Possibly. But that is not what played out in Wisconsin - so there is some cause for concern, IMO.

I see that as a potential lesson learned, not a pattern to be feared of followed.

[carpedm9587]

I see that as a potential lesson learned, not a pattern to be feared of followed.

We'll see...

[lilpixieofterror]

Pix - most of this has already been responded to, so I won't waste time repeating. But I thought I would at least address the emphasized part. You seem to be under the impression that I am "lashing out," a term usually associated with anger and retribution.

I realize the odds of you believing this are close to zero - but I'm an optimist. So what the heck. I actually am not angry - nor seeking retribution. If I were to describe my mood it would probably be "resigned disappointment." With MM it is usually "wry amusement." My post was intended to (hopefully) convey to you the pointlessness of making up an entire caricature in your mind, and then arguing with it as if it were a real person.

The real person is right here, on this side of the keyboard. And he is nothing like the figment you have created and continually post to. You have missed the mark so widely, it is hard for me to know where to begin.

Like I said - almost zero chance of you believing it - but I had to at least give it a go.

Be well.

[firstfloor]

Capitalism has placed our manufacturing in China. Professor Covid wants us to understand that economies have to be rebalanced. The world is not to be run anymore by and for only the 1%.

[Mountain Man]

Capitalism has placed our manufacturing in China.

That's why I'm in favor of a regulated free market. As President Trump has been saying from day one, economic security is national security.

[seanD]

Capitalism has placed our manufacturing in China. Professor Covid wants us to understand that economies have to be rebalanced. The world is not to be run anymore by and for only the 1%.

Your first statement is not entirely true. There are a variety of reasons companies move overseas and two of the top reasons -- taxes = government; regulations = government. Your last statement is true but that's because of the federal reserve. Federal reserve unfortunately is going nowhere, in fact, our congress just granted them even more power and control than they even had before. Before they could set interest rates and print money at their sole description with no government oversight to stop them (which benefited wallstreet). They can do the same, only now they can actually buy every asset known to man (including junk bonds, derivatives, and ETFs, so no wallstreet investor will ever lose money) and bail-out any company as they so desire. None of that has anything whatsoever to do with capitalism, at least not the free market variety.

[carpedm9587]

You misunderstood my post, Pix. The optimism I expressed was not about Trump - it was a (usually pointless) optimism about you - that you would (eventually) let go of the caricature you have created in your own mind and actually address the arguments I have made as they were made.

This is false (though I'm sure you won't accept that). As previously noted, no person is 100% evil. It is true, however, that Trump does far more that I find inappropriate, offensive, dangerous, and immoral than he does that I find appropriate, inoffensive, beneficial, and moral - hence my 95/5 comment earlier. And I draw a clear line between "policy-related" things and "ethics-related" things (thought there can be an overlap).

And, for the record, if someone actually asked me to compare Trump to Hitler, I would put Hitler closer to "pure evil" than Trump. In terms of balance of good/evil they are pretty close to at par, but in terms of degree of evil, they aren't even close. Trump lies regularly. Hitler murdered. Both are repugnant. But they do not even begin to compare in terms of "degree of evil," IMO.

What figment have I created Carp?

The one referred to above.

Again - most of this is based on the caricature you have created. You're not about to let it go, as far as I can tell, so I really have no further response. You should take this up with the caricature you have created.

[Mountain Man]

Apparently liberals are trying to turn lockdown protests into a racial issue.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/bethba...erate-n2567170

https://www.breitbart.com/entertainm...rica-protests/

And then you have this nutjob from NBC suggesting that it's all part of the vast Russian conspiracy:

Screenshot_20200419_155601.jpg
https://twitter.com/BarbMcQuade/stat...30112488607746

If you call yourself a liberal, you should feel very embarrassed that you've thrown your lot in with morons like this. And, no, these aren't extremists or outlier examples of liberalism. This is typical.

[carpedm9587]

Capitalism has placed our manufacturing in China. Professor Covid wants us to understand that economies have to be rebalanced. The world is not to be run anymore by and for only the 1%.

So I think this is a little simplistic and there are a number of basic facts that are missing here.

For instance, manufacturing in the U.S. has or has not contracted, depending on what "contracted" means to you. There are three ways to measure manufacturing in the U.S.: employment, percentage of GDP, and percentage of real GDP. In terms of employment, manufacturing jobs HAVE contracted a great deal. In 1953, 32% of the U.S. workforce was employed in manufacturing jobs. In 2015 it was 8.7%. That seems a whopping drop. But in 1953 the U.S. labor force was 62.2M people, and in 2015 it was 157.13M. So in 1953 19.9M people had manufacturing jobs and in 2015 the number was 13.7M. That's a contraction for sure, but not as much as the percentages would have you think. What accounts for this contraction in the workforce? Two things seem to be part of the picture. First, a significant amount of automation has been introduced, replacing a great deal of the workforce. Second, jobs have gone overseas. Why and what kind? The low-salary, repetitive labor jobs have tended to move overseas because the labor force there is simply less expensive to hire. That is pretty much inevitable in a capitalistic economy: jobs will go where the cost is the lowest because salaries is the largest item on every company's books, so the best place to go to save a lot of money.

Manufacturing has also shrunk as a percentage of GDP. In 1953, it was 28.1% of GDP and in 2015 it dropped to about 12%. Why? Well, as automation replaces people, labor costs go down driving the cost of manufacturing down, resulting in low cost products. GDP is a function of two things: the number of things produced and their price. As prices for manufactured goods drop, manufacturing's share of GDP drops along with it.

If you factor out price and look just at the things produced, which is known as "real GDP," manufacturing has floated around between a low of 11.3% (1982-83) and a high of 13.6% (1972-73) since 1947, and was 11.7% in 2015.

GDP has grown from $0.389 trillion on 1953 to $18.225 trillion in 2015 (an average annual rate of increase of 6%). Real GDP has averaged 3.03% growth in that same period, so if we manufactured a million widgets in 1953, we manufactured 7.25 million widgets in 2015, a more than seven-fold increase.

Bottom line, our manufacturing sector is over seven times as large in 2015 as it was in 1953. It is holding around 12% +/- 1.5% of real GDP. But the number of jobs that represents has shrunk by about 31.1% and the share of GDP has halved. The reduction in % of GDP is primarily due to reduction in prices. The reduction in jobs is partly due to automation, and partly due to lower-wage jobs moving overseas. (though I have no data on the distribution of those two things.

Some of my sources for this analysis:

https://www.multpl.com/us-real-gdp-g.../table/by-year
https://www.thebalance.com/us-gdp-by-year-3305543
https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-ec...ally-declining

[carpedm9587]

Apparently liberals are trying to turn lockdown protests into a racial issue.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/bethba...erate-n2567170

https://www.breitbart.com/entertainm...rica-protests/

And then you have this nutjob from NBC suggesting that it's all part of the vast Russian conspiracy:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]44160[/ATTACH]
https://twitter.com/BarbMcQuade/stat...30112488607746

If you call yourself a liberal, you should feel very embarrassed that you've thrown your lot in with morons like this. And, no, these aren't extremists or outlier examples of liberalism. This is typical.

So - there is a racial dimension to the coronavirus insofar as it is impacting minorities more than it is impacting non-minorities. But as with so many things, that is an indirect effect: it is impacting the poor more than those who are well off because the poor often lacks adequate access to healthcare and are more likely to have health issues, making them more at risk with this virus. And it is simply true that the percentage of poverty among minorities is higher than among non-minorities. However, I don't think it is necessarily "racist" to be arguing for re-opening the country. I just think it's criminally stupid - given that we have not yet contained this pandemic, it has a significant (and insidious) transmission rate, and it has a significant mortality rate compared to the seasonal flu.

As for the Russia involvement in the protests, I have not seen any evidence that they are, but the U.S. intelligence agencies and Mueller's report were clear that Russia is involved in attempting to undermine the U.S. by intentionally pitting U.S. citizens against one another and fomenting discord through social media. That has been more than amply documented for me. So I would not be surprised in the least to find that they are playing the same games with the coronavirus.

[carpedm9587]

I cannot believe Trump. Just when I think he cannot sink lower - he begins to tweet his "liberate" message - appealing to his base and putting a lot of people in harm's way. Both GOP and Dem governors are speaking out against it.

Meanwhile, NY cases are slipping below 1/3 of the national number, and new cases are down at 1/4. That means a growing proportion of the cases are now arising from outside NY. Today NJ, MA, OH, IL, and PA are all at the top of the list of new cases (behind NY, of course), but FL, MI, IN, MD are not far behind and all above 500 new cases per day. Michigan is one of the states Trump is seeking to "liberate." None of these states have seen a significant flattening of the growth curve, AFAICT.

He is so badly mismanaging this crisis, I have increasing hopes it will be his undoing on 11/3. What a mess...

[carpedm9587]

On a positive note...I took this video just down the road from our place this morning. Being house-bound has it's advantages.

And yes - that is both Mr. and Mrs. Carpe in the audio...and our runt of a dog - Opal