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)

Legislative aide - Coordinate and attend meetings. Assist with the drafting of speeches, press releases and legislation. Conduct and summarize legal research, research studies and constituent surveys.
Her position - mail clerk and supervising interns.
Nowhere near the same thing. Like the receptionist putting "VP of communications and publications" as their title.


91-94 is up to 4 years, she worked for him for 9 months. That's a 3.25 year exaggeration, not one, which would itself be more than doubling the truth.

Um...you think?! Yes, it's bad when your college says you didn't graduate, and a lie when you say you did. I don't think her cases would all be under review over a database problem.

Her current accusations ARE brand new, never coming to light in 30 years of Biden running for offices, including VP. They absolutely did totally pop up out of nowhere at a suspiciously convenient time in politics....and are bat shit crazy, forcefully fingered in a public alcove in the public halls of congress. Get real.

Edit: the long and short is she's not credible, at best she's shown a willingness to hyper exaggerate if it benefits her, more likely she's a bold faced liar who may have been paid to make accusations.

You might want to watch all those videos again.

Hitting a parked car at 60km/h and not rolling would be a clearly better outcome. The parked car is not a solid wall, it cannot bring you to a "dead stop".

Hitting a barrier and rolling is clearly worse than hitting the same barrier and sliding along it, "bouncing" off it, spinning etc even if you're clipped by another car. Again even with the sharp swerve into the barrier it would never have been a "dead stop"

Hitting the car in front which has suddenly braked would be far better than a high speed roll even if the car behind proceeds to rear end you. The closest to your "dead stop" scenario and still far better than a high speed roll.

I'm arguing with you because you often backup what you're saying with demonstrable facts, in this case you're not. You're ignoring variables, using differing experience to draw conclusions and dismissing the severity of something based on your controlled personal experience of it.

"Citation? Physics. acceleration = Δv/Δt. Larger injuries come from higher g forces."

Has nothing to do with studies in vehicular CSI. I asked for a citation relating to maximum force/time being a primary factor in vehicular CSI not a physics equation and a stunningly simplified opinion. Again this is the shit I'm arguing with you about.

Don't mistake me, im not unreasonable. Im sure we probably could find someone who didn't add an asterisk and say "IF no one does anything" as an attempt to get ratings. As someone with extra time on his hands who was watching the news nearly constantly though, I didnt see that.

That said, still don't think the claim holds up. Even if there was halfhazard use of that study as a headline creator at times, he's using it as a justification to say basically that there definitely WERE going to be these deaths, and trump stopped them. That is simply not true. If even one single person decided to wear a mask, those numbers drop.

That and there are degrees of good and bad jobs being done, it's not binary.

Closing down the country? good.
Closing it down earlier? better.
Not restocking the emergency stockpilke when warned? bad
Blaming obama when he is the one who fired the pandemic team? asshole
Funneling money for small business relief into his own company and his son in laws? criminal
Opening too soon? bad
Finally encouraging people to wear masks? okay, but could be better

etc.

------------- also ----------------

my cousin just died
39, 5 kids
she had "fluid on the lungs"
but it's not determined yet the cause
like im saying my mom just called me 1 hour ago
im tryin to find a fucking picture of her on her husband's facebook
but all i can find is shit about not wearing masks and how obama is trying to stop trump from blah blah blah

Did donald trump kill my cousin? absolutely not.
Did he help spread propaganda that encouraged her to not wear a mask and break social distancing because 'MERICA!? yes And he's currently trying to force the RNC to accomodate 50k people in one small space, to boot.

She was 39, 5 kids

https://reason.com/2020/03/31/2-2-million-american-deaths-from-covid-19/

Here


"The 2.2 million figure was a projection based on a scenario where not only do the government and private companies not engage in any "control measures," but individuals don't on their own change their behavior to avoid contracting or spreading the virus. The study refers to this possibility as "unlikely," but let's be blunt: it's entirely fanciful. "

That's the origin. So yes, we are doing better than if the entire country 's population of individuals did nothing, AND the government did nothing. That's technically true, but it's about as likely as people sitting at their desks when the office catches fire.

Dude, tell me you are not this dumb. here's the video and a searchable transcript https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4864096/dr-deborah-birx-modeling

>>>>>>>>>And what about it exactly? she says

"There is no model right now -- no reality on the ground where we can see that 60% to 70% of Americans are going to get infected in the next eight to 12 weeks. I want to be clear about that."

???Oh???
so you have no models that say that ANDDDDD you have no data on the ground that indicates that that is happening? Okayyyy???? WHAT?

We also have no data that there is a giant sea monster attack in Florida AND we have no studies that say that... like what??????? I said "go find ONE example of someone credible saying that shit."


This is not what i asked for, this is someone from the Trump administration SAYING that someone in the media is saying that + a bunch of word salad nonsense.


Come on man, ALLL the media reports of doom and gloom claiming millions will die in the usa! (supposedly)

Use your GO-TO sources for news that you claim are liars. CNN NBC ABC MSNBC You know! It should be easy to find a clip from them from this time period claiming this. After all, you got your information straight from the trump administration, so it's VERY reliable.

============
============


Let's be real here. You got this idea from the Trump admin, and the people at that podium. I appreciate you ferreting out the origin of this information, really. I dig that you went and found something close to someone saying that t5here will be X many million deaths, but at some point, you have to admit that YOU GOT YOUR INFORMATION FROM PEOPLE THAT ARE NOT BEING HONEST.

If you are interested in what she ( the science/studies say) has to say regarding Vitamin C. It's a tricky one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_ZJ8YDOX6g&feature=youtu.be&t=3355

Stuck inside sick then stuck in ICU = vitamin D deficiency. Like she says, correlation is not causation. But to netwboy's point, it's a very studied compound with not a lot of known downside if taken as directed, so whaddya got to lose? Just a bit of money, like all those vitamin C pills I took to keep from getting sick

- Study in Indonesia found that out of the patients that died from COVID-19, 98.9% of them were deficient in vitamin D, while only 4% of the patients with sufficient vitamin D died. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3585561

- Study of patients in New Orleans found that 84.6% of the COVID-19 patients in the ICU were deficient in Vitamin D while only 4% of the patients in the ICU had sufficient levels of Vitamin D. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.24.20075838v1

- Study in the Philippines found that for every standard deviation increase in vitamin D people were 7.94 times more likely to have a mild rather than severe COVID-19 outcome and 19.61 times more likely to have a mild rather than critical outcome. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3571484

"Ya know, seventy percent of the US population has insufficient vitamin D levels..."

The experts keep telling us to avoid the sun. Numerous studies show supplementing D with a pill doesn't do the job (google it). Surprised? They're finding that about most vitamins, after all. And in fact, some studies suggest (right along with logic) that doing so can cause harm: since the sun uses cholesterol to produce D, avoiding the sun and supplementing D (thus, removing any need to produce it naturally) can actually raise your cholesterol. Yes, it's not 100% scientifically confirmed yet, but what is? Thought experiment.

Toss the supplements. We evolved under the sun; go out in it periodically for a while, just don't get burnt.


Edit: Having now watched the whole thing, I now see they do cover much of that. Alright, well, Go get some sun.

Shocking no one, hydroxy
cloroquine doesn't appear to help.

More head up your ass denial from the right. Do your research...you'll find that, unlike every other president ever, Trump continues to hide his assets and refuse to divest in non-American companies. His stock holdings in Sanofi, maker of the name brand, have been uncovered, but who knows how much of his holdings are still secret? No one since his financial ties are locked door secrets. What is clear is that multiple major donors have massive holdings in sanofi and other generic manufacturers, some ARE drug manufacturers, so he has good reason to sell it even if he didn't have the personal stake that he has....he gets millions in donations he can pilfer.

FYI, a near 100% of doctors disagree, there are zero studies and only some anecdotal evidence to support Trump's self serving snake oil claims, and tons of proof that it's dangerous, has side effects that can be permanently disabling or deadly and may be worse and more likely than average Covid19 symptoms, and has not proven to be effective against Covid19. Do your research. Drugs of last resort should not be used as preventative or unsupervised medicine, or be suggested by people who know nothing but stand to benefit financially.

It's bad because it causes;
Blistering, peeling, loosening of the skin
blurred vision or other vision changes
chest discomfort, pain, or tightness
cough or hoarseness
dark urine
decreased urination
defective color vision
diarrhea
difficulty breathing
difficulty seeing at night
dizziness or fainting
fast, pounding, uneven heartbeat
feeling that others are watching you or controlling your behavior
feeling that others can hear your thoughts
feeling, seeing, or hearing things that are not there
fever with or without chills
general feeling of tiredness or weakness
headache
inability to move the eyes
increased blinking or spasms of the eyelid
joint or muscle pain
large, hive-like swelling on the face, eyelids, lips, tongue, throat, hands, legs, feet, and sex organs
loss of hearing
lower back or side pain
noisy breathing
painful or difficult urination
red irritated eyes
red skin lesions, often with a purple center
severe mood or mental changes
sore throat sores, ulcers, or white spots on the lips or in the mouth
sticking out of the tongue
stomach pain
swelling of the feet or lower legs
swollen or painful glands
trouble with breathing, speaking, or swallowing
uncontrolled twisting movements of the neck, trunk, arms, or legs
unusual behavior
unusual bleeding or bruising
unusual facial expressions
unusual tiredness or weakness
yellow eyes or skin
Heart failure
Death
All with no evidence it helps with Covid19

And it comes out....Trump, his family, and various republican mega donors have large stakes in the French company that makes hydroxychloroquine, as well as pharmaceutical companies (also mega donors to Republicans) who stand to make billions if the drug sees wide use.
It's unproven, it's dangerous, studies indicate it's not actually useful, but it makes Trump money. Of course your ilk are supporting it's use.

It indicated it was collaborated with the Chinese lab in Wuhan . Studying is fine, Chinese letting it loose in Wuhan is not.

Keep spinning Truth to negate the fault of Chinese.

Are you part of the 1000 talents? Probably not you most likely a stooge