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Newt,

This is in response to your comment on my statement about Biden needing to lose in '20.

I recently wrote this as a reply to one of my readers (I write under a number of different names in other places).:

Dear <name>,

>I took some time to absorb what you wrote. It's a lot to juggle. The Atlantic has an article in the July-August issue on the worst and best case scenario in CLO defaults. I'll read more.

I read the article you mentioned, and while it's certainly good, it also misses a very important point that explains the mess we're in: the collapse of Lehman and Bear-Stearns, while catastrophic in their own ways, were not the nightmare that caused the Fed to freak out in 2008 -- AIG was. Had AIG gone under and the counterparty default contracts triggered, we'd be on the barter system right now. We came within hours of not having an economy in the western world. The $700b ($.7t) the Fed coughed up to stop this from happening calmed the panic, but did nothing to resolve the underlying issues. These issues continued to compound during the 2011-2020 stock run-up and now we're at the point where the Fed is throwing trillions of dollars at every piece of bad debt they can find just to keep the whole thing from imploding into an economic black hole. It is important to note that in September '19, the credit markets started freezing because of the debt that was already on the books then, -before- CV-19 started rolling, and it took $3t just to get them unlocked again. Absolutely nothing has gotten better since then, and I would argue things have gotten dangerously worse.

In an odd coincidence, the NYT ran an article today about the looming bankruptcy crisis. They're calling for 30-60 days before things start imploding, but I'll stick to my estimate of ~90 days. There's some talk about extending the $600 benefits (we'll see) and chatter about another stimulus check, but that's kicking the can as well as telegraphing how bad things really are. When the Republicans are getting behind free money, you know we're in some uncharted territory. For all intents and purposes, Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) -- the reason the Fed is backstopping debt and printing money like crazy -- is the hill the US economy will live or die on. Should the US dollar come unpegged as the world's de facto currency or should inflation begin (and there's already worrying signs this is happening), that's game over.

Please don't take anything I say as the Word of God; please do your own research and come to your own conclusions. Everything I've said is an opinion based on my education, experience and way of thinking. Your mileage may vary.

Here is the article I mentioned: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/18/business/corporate-bankruptcy-coronavirus.html -- might be paywalled, but clear your cookies for the NYT and you should be able to read it.


>Frankly, it's the physical danger in my area of the States that concerns me. There are the guns and bullying. During some BLM demonstrations in the Midwest, locals were standing around with semi-automatics. I drive a Prius for the fuel efficiency. Pick up trucks enjoy tailgating, trying to intimidate me. This behavior isn't going to change with a change of President but will get worse is we don't change. This ideological push to takeover the country instead of ruling by compromise started around the same time we came to the US in 1981, Reagan's first year. I was so shocked when I heard talk radio for the first time; this wasn't the country I had left in the 1970s.


And now we come to the giant pile of sweaty dynamite that's just waiting for the right shock to set it off. I could give you a prolonged lecture about how this all started in 1978 with California's Proposition 13, or how David Stockman's tragically prescient warnings were blatantly ignored, but Haynes Johnson does a far better job at this than I ever could in his 1991 book "Sleepwalking Through History", as does Kevin Phillips in 2006's "American Theocracy". Honestly, at this point, the prelude is academic. The reality of the situation is that a large swath of adult Americans are appalling ill-educated, innumerate and devoid of even the most basic critical-thinking skills. These people are now locked out of the Information Economy. They lack the most basic skills required to compete in the 21st century job market and thus will watch their standard of living sink into the abyss. These people are not blind to this fact because they're living with the reality of their situation every single day. They're totally without hope, cut off from all avenues of control over their own lives and they feel utterly abandoned by the very people who're supposed to be helping them. The reason you're seeing bullying and behavior like that is because these same people are totally removed from any avenues of recourse and the only people they can take their anger out on are people like you and me. Their anger is being stoked on a daily basis. FOX News and the GOP are experts at this and have a host of boogeymen to keep the anger from being pointed their way: ANTIFA, BLM (black Americans have always made a perfect target), "coastal elites" and, of course, Liberals.

Trump's election was a warning, not an outlier. Trump was the primal scream of these people and Liberals and the Democrats as a whole chose not to listen because they found the sound so abhorrent. The rage will only get worse and the number of people enveloped by this rage will only grow as economic conditions worsen. At this point, it no longer matters who wins in '20. Winning the election will be like winning the deed to the World Trade Center one second after the first jet hit. The damage has already been done and no steps are being taken to repair it; if anything, people are actively making it worse either through ideological blindness, deliberate malfeasance or outright stupidity. It took almost 50 years to get to this point and the endemic issues will not be undone in a single generation, much less a single election. Until the people who voted for Trump feel a sense of real hope, a sense of control over their lives and a genuine expectation of recourse for their grievances, they will keep right on voting for Trump, or people like him.

My unfortunate suspicion is that this country will rip itself to shreds long before those reforms are enacted.

Side note: the fundamental difference between the United States and Europe is that European history has forced the nations of Europe to live with the consequences of their actions. Not so the United States. Europe has suffered for her sins. Not so the United States. The two bloodiest wars in human history were fought on European soil. Not so the United States. The United States has never faced true suffering, nor has it ever had to live with the ramifications of its own actions. Both these facts are about to change and a nation whose character is built on a mythology of individual action and violence is going to have to face reality. The people of this nation are not prepared for this and they will not like it.

Second side note: many people are erroneously comparing the current situation to the Wiemar Republic. This is a lack of historical understanding. A more apt comparison would be to Spain in late 1935.


>As for re-opening, we could have gotten some control if the "leader" had simply donned a mask and used realistic thinking. People could go back to work more safely, wash hands, stay a certain distance. But his hubris led the way, so now we'll have a roller coaster for months and years that will affect the economy even more. France is a good comparison because they were unprepared also, having slashed the public healthcare budget for the last twenty years. But when they laid down the rules, troops patrolled the streets to be sure they were followed. So far, they've flattened the curve (for now), and used different economic incentives, such as paying part of employees' salaries to keep them employed.

At this point, the pace of re-opening is a difference between very bad and much worse. Had $3t been used to pay the yearly salary of every American, we could have saved lives and the economy, but we didn't. The history of 2020 will be littered with "what-ifs". However, the first thing you learn when studying history is that what-ifs are useless because things are what they are and you can't change that. It's already obvious we're going into a second wave. If previous pandemics are any indication of what's to come, this second wave will be many times worse than the first. The wait for a vaccine is indeterminate, but if we're going for herd immunity, ~70% of Americans will need to catch the virus. To date, ~1.5% have. If the US population is ~330 million, ~230 million will need to catch the virus. Call the mortality rate 2%, that means ~4.6 million Americans will die. That's a lot of dead Americans and grieving families.

Take care,

(my actual name)

Why? I doubt you want an honest answer, but here's one anyway.

Because the Fed refused to help states in crisis and, to free up desperately needed hospital beds for those in immediate dire need of hospitalization, some infected patients who were not showing symptoms or in need of hospitalization were discharged to facilities where they could receive routine care outside the hospital.
Had this not been done, there would have been a massive shortage in hospital beds, and a corresponding jump in deaths across the board. It would have been smart to quarantine them separately like California did in many cases, at least until we were sure they were no longer infectious, but since American testing still gives 50% false negatives, that's impossible.
Because most nursing homes utterly failed to follow guidelines for properly quarantining these patients, and because the virus targets exactly the same people who live in nursing homes, elderly with health issues, and because the outbreak began in nursing homes and spread among them while Trump insisted there was no danger, it's less dangerous than the flu, there's no need to change behavior and we won't ever have over 15 cases, they were going to be a major problem.

Those were their only options given the federal government's near total lack of action, keep them in the hospital and deny other patients or send them "home" to be quarantined. Neither was a good option, both were certain to end in increased deaths.


If, as I and others suggested in January, we used the military to build temporary hospitals for covid only like China had already done and instituted social distancing, we would have <10% of the cases we've had and might be safe to relax. Instead we did nothing for months based on Trump's ignorant stupidity and his narcissistic insistence that he knows more about everything than educated career professionals, this cost at least 90000 American lives and rising, along with the decimation of the economy, the explosion of the deficit and debt, and at best a recession if not depression that could have been avoided.

A crisis! What a great brand opportunity!

An example of how corporations are like sociopaths. If a person stood up and gave a speech taken from the text of these ads, you'd be wondering what the fuck's wrong with this person for making the whole thing about themself. You'd also be wondering why broadcast news is carrying it live every day.

Nope.
Trump denied there was any danger from the beginning, no significant or hazardous infection in America, and insisted it would miraculously disappear by April. Last week he suggested ending stay at home orders next weekend! Batshit crazy and criminally ignorant at best, intentional attempted mass homicide at worst.

Trump didn't stop flights from China, airlines did. Trump restricted travel for non citizens (except family of citizens) coming from China Jan 31, well after most flights were cancelled, and only when faced with the uniform recommendation of the career public health officials at HHS.

What preparations? They seemed to start those last week, not in February, and certainly not before. Most temporary hospitals are still in the planning stage, not built or stocked, and completely unstaffed. Stockpiles were not full or being filled. It seems they weren't even making plans, just denials.

The racist part was Trump and his subordinates calling it the Chinese flu and Kung Flu.

The loudest and latest one saying it was like any flu and not a problem was Trump, here's a clip of that from less than one month ago, try again.

https://youtu.be/xcDq1jUAuI4

Trump should not have dismantled the systems in place that made us more prepared, nor should he have underfunded and defunded the health programs and organizations so vital right now, nor should he have ignored the impacts other countries were suffering and, instead of preparing, downplayed the unfolding crisis while dragging his feet on any responses, or refused WHO tests that worked in S Korea in favor of nonexistent American tests that at first didn't work at all, couldn't be mass produced so are STILL in short supply, and now seem to give false negatives 1/3 of the time because the manufacturer donated $1.5 million, but he did.

China lied and minimized (sounds familiar) until mid January, yes, but Trump dismantled the CDC Pandemic Preparedness program that was designed to protect us from exactly that likelihood...that is their M. O.. Remember, the whistle blower went public in mid December, but Trump and co. ignored it, accepting China's obvious lies. The CDCPPP could not only have verified his claims, but could have sounded the alarm earlier. (Think Brad Pitt in WWZ)

Trump calls the Chinese liars and thieves, then bases his policies on what they tell him with no method or effort to confirm it, then denies any responsibility?! Trump STILL called it the flu less than 1 month ago. Who is he blaming for hiding the truth from him until then?

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Oh dear. I knew you were halfway around the world! I am starting that slide into death called being over 65 and I am forgetting all sorts of things now. (I had to stare at my slippers for a full 90 seconds before I could remember the word. I knew they went on my feet though. Not that far gone yet.)

So yeah. Summer. We do something similar in about six months -- except it is light at 5 am and the sun sets about 9:45 pm. And never gets to 111.

I have been reading about your climate crisis challenges. My heart is breaking for you all.

Just like the stock market rally having little to do with Trump's policies, the border crisis is not a result of Trump either. It's created almost entirely by external forces in other countries. He could order the border patrol to not lock any of them up, but that would just shift the crisis elsewhere. Congress needs to provide funding to get to a solution, be it a fence or more judges, or an uncapped immigration number. If Hillary were elected she would be having the same problems.

When you want to paint your own picture, it's helpful to leave out a few details. An important detail that you left out is that it took Noah 100 years to build the Ark. The scripture tells us that Noah was a preacher of righteousness and he pleaded with the people of the pre-flood world to escape the coming judgment. He didn't have a single convert proving the truth of what God had said about that world:

Genesis 6:5

And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually

You also mentioned that you think Gods requirements are impossible. That is true except for one exception; they are not impossible when the Lord Jesus Christ has come into your life and changed you. As a Christian who is far from perfect I meet Gods requirements. His requirement is this, that we believe in His Son Jesus Christ and live for Him.

It's impossible without Christ to do what God wants. If you have Christ in your life you are well able to meet Gods requirements because what God is looking for is faith. He requires that you repent from your sins and receive the forgiveness He has provided for you through Christ. When you do that God will adopt you as His son and give you eternal life. That isn't the MO of a despot.

We here in America like to believe we are good people morally and that is how people present themselves in the public square. Yet we see all of the crime statistics and civil unrest in the country which is the spillover from the greatest character crisis this nation has ever faced. God sees it all, every wicked thing done in the dark and He knows what man is really like. It takes humility to admit that about yourself and realize that God is right about the carnality and futility of what men do in this world. It is only through Christ that men have received light to do what is eternally significant instead of living for their own selfish ends.

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In the wake of the financial crisis Iceland refused to listen to the bad advice of the bankers who caused the mess and locked them up instead. This let them recover their economy instead of falling deeper in to the bankers debt.

If it's a crisis now what word were they using in 2000 when the number of crossings was four times higher?

Last year had one of the lowest rates of crossings in the last two decades.

I like the "carrying heavy artillery" comment. Would love to see some pics of an illegal immigrant lugging around a cannon.