NOT MINE
Sunday, May 24, 2020
TRUMP GOLF SCORE
Joe Biden@JoeBiden
Nearly 100,000 lives have been lost, and tens of millions are out of work.
Meanwhile, the president spent his day golfing.
7:56 PM · May 23, 2020·
https://twitter.com/i/status/1264374557860716544
https://trumpgolfcount.com/
TRUMPS GOLF SCORE MAY 23 IS
73 DEAD AMERICANS PER HOLE
ON 18 ROUNDS
YOU DO THE MATH
Online Calculator
Kayleigh McEnany in 2017: ‘When we’re in a state of mourning, you should take time off from golf’
Published on May 24, 2020 By David Edwards
Comments made by White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany in 2017 came back to haunt her over the Memorial Day weekend as President Donald Trump played golf despite the on going coronavirus pandemic.
As Trump visited one of his golf courses for a second day in a row, a video circulated on social media of McEnany attacking former President Barack Obama.
“You have President Obama, who I believe it was after the beheading of Daniel Pearl, spoke to how upset he was about that then rushed off to a golf game,” McEnany said during a CNN segment. “I think when we’re in a state of war, when we’re in a state of mourning, you should take time off from the golf course.”
McEnany later apologized for the statement. Obama was a state senator at the time Pearl was killed in 2002.
This week, the United States is expected to surpass 100,000 coronavirus deaths.
Watch the video below.
WATCH: Kayleigh McEnany: Obama rushed off to golf after Daniel Pearl was beheaded.
Pearl was killed in 2002. Obama was a state senator. pic.twitter.com/5QkFRgjoR4
— Yashar Ali
Watch the video below.
WATCH: Kayleigh McEnany: Obama rushed off to golf after Daniel Pearl was beheaded.
Pearl was killed in 2002. Obama was a state senator. pic.twitter.com/5QkFRgjoR4
— Yashar Ali
AFP / MANDEL NGAN
President Donald Trump returns to the White House after golfing at the Trump National club in Sterling, Virginia on May 23, 2020
President Donald Trump kicked off the start of the American summer season on Saturday with his first golf outing in two months, underlining his push for a return to normal life in the United States.
With lockdowns easing across the country and the US leader ramping up his travels, Trump also confirmed he would attend a space launch in Florida next week.
As the US marked Memorial Day weekend -- the country's unofficial start of summer -- Trump took a 35-minute drive from the White House to the Trump National club in Sterling, Virginia, in his first visit to a golf property since March 8.
US media captured footage of the president, an avid golfer before the coronavirus lockdown, on the course on the warm sunny day, dressed in a white shirt and dark trousers.
AFP / Alex Edelman
President Donald Trump kicked off the start of the American summer season on Saturday with his first golf outing in two months, underlining his push for a return to normal life in the United States.
With lockdowns easing across the country and the US leader ramping up his travels, Trump also confirmed he would attend a space launch in Florida next week.
As the US marked Memorial Day weekend -- the country's unofficial start of summer -- Trump took a 35-minute drive from the White House to the Trump National club in Sterling, Virginia, in his first visit to a golf property since March 8.
US media captured footage of the president, an avid golfer before the coronavirus lockdown, on the course on the warm sunny day, dressed in a white shirt and dark trousers.
AFP / Alex Edelman
With lockdowns easing across the country and the US leader ramping up his travels, Trump also confirmed he would attend a space launch in Florida next week
Neither Trump nor his three golf partners wore masks, though he rode alone in his golf cart, a CNN journalist reported.
White House coronavirus advisor Deborah Birx on Friday said that sports such as golf could be played safely if social distancing was in place and players didn't touch flags.
But she also warned that the Washington area continued to have high positive test rates.
Trump, keen to find a way out of the coronavirus crisis and facing an uphill re-election battle, has ramped up pressure on state and local governments to ease lockdown measures.
On Friday, he demanded state governors classify churches, synagogues and mosques as "essential services" on the same level as food and drug stores, and immediately allow them to hold services.
The pandemic has hammered the American economy and led to a fierce debate over virus restrictions, even as COVID-19 numbers continue rising in parts of the US -- the worst-hit country in the world, with 1.6 million infections and more than 96,000 deaths.
- Florida space launch -
Nevertheless the warm weather and weeks of confinement have made many hungry for a return to some normalcy over the Memorial Day weekend, which is usually marked by barbecues and swimming.
Residents of Galveston, Texas were flocking to the Seawall Urban Park beach on a hot, windy day -- few wearing masks, though many followed social distancing, even in the water.
Neither Trump nor his three golf partners wore masks, though he rode alone in his golf cart, a CNN journalist reported.
White House coronavirus advisor Deborah Birx on Friday said that sports such as golf could be played safely if social distancing was in place and players didn't touch flags.
But she also warned that the Washington area continued to have high positive test rates.
Trump, keen to find a way out of the coronavirus crisis and facing an uphill re-election battle, has ramped up pressure on state and local governments to ease lockdown measures.
On Friday, he demanded state governors classify churches, synagogues and mosques as "essential services" on the same level as food and drug stores, and immediately allow them to hold services.
The pandemic has hammered the American economy and led to a fierce debate over virus restrictions, even as COVID-19 numbers continue rising in parts of the US -- the worst-hit country in the world, with 1.6 million infections and more than 96,000 deaths.
- Florida space launch -
Nevertheless the warm weather and weeks of confinement have made many hungry for a return to some normalcy over the Memorial Day weekend, which is usually marked by barbecues and swimming.
Residents of Galveston, Texas were flocking to the Seawall Urban Park beach on a hot, windy day -- few wearing masks, though many followed social distancing, even in the water.
AFP / Alex Edelman
the warm weather and weeks of confinement have made many hungry for a return to some normalcy over the Memorial Day weekend
"I feel safe. Well we're six foot apart. It's a lot of distance here. Very safe," building contractor Michael Bryer told AFP.
Others expressed relief at the change of scenery, like stay-at-home mother Kayla Lambert, who was happy to just "get out of the house".
"I have two kids that are playing in the water and we just get tired of being stuck in the house. There's not much else to do. So I came to the beach," she said.
Trump, meanwhile, will continue ramping up his travel schedule next week.
The White House on Saturday confirmed the president would also attend the May 27 launch in Florida of two astronauts on a SpaceX mission -- the first crewed space flight from US soil in nine years.
"I feel safe. Well we're six foot apart. It's a lot of distance here. Very safe," building contractor Michael Bryer told AFP.
Others expressed relief at the change of scenery, like stay-at-home mother Kayla Lambert, who was happy to just "get out of the house".
"I have two kids that are playing in the water and we just get tired of being stuck in the house. There's not much else to do. So I came to the beach," she said.
Trump, meanwhile, will continue ramping up his travel schedule next week.
The White House on Saturday confirmed the president would also attend the May 27 launch in Florida of two astronauts on a SpaceX mission -- the first crewed space flight from US soil in nine years.
AFP / Alex Edelman
A local artist and onlookers wear masks on the boardwalk during the Memorial Day holiday weekend on May 23, 2020 in Ocean City, Maryland
Astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley are scheduled to blast off from Kennedy Space Center at 4:33 pm (2033 GMT) on Wednesday for the International Space Station, arriving the next day.
Astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley are scheduled to blast off from Kennedy Space Center at 4:33 pm (2033 GMT) on Wednesday for the International Space Station, arriving the next day.
However, the Wednesday launch plan could be hit by bad weather, with a 60 percent chance of a postponement, according to official forecasts.
Who are you, and what have you done to Ann Coulter?
Chris Wallace grills Dr. Birx as deaths blow past her rosy projections: ‘Did we reopen too soon?’
SINCE TRUMP WON'T FIRE HER, DEMOCRATS SHOULD DEMAND HER RESIGNATION SHE IS AN ENABLER NOT THE ADULT IN THE ROOM
Published on May 24, 2020 By David Edwards
White House coronavirus task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx defended her claim that there would be fewer than 60,000 deaths from the virus as new projections warn that the death toll could reach 150,000 people.
In an interview on Sunday, Fox News host Chris Wallace grilled Birx about the discrepancy.
“A month ago, both you and President Trump were talking about 60,000 COVID-19 deaths,” Fox News host Chris Wallace noted. “Early this week, we’re going to reach 100,000 deaths from the coronavirus and those models you’re citing now talk about close to 150,000 deaths by August.”
“Those are the figures that we continue to stand by in this first wave,” she insisted. “And understanding how to prevent future hospitalizations and future deaths is really what we’re focused on every single day.”
“A month ago, you were saying we were going to come down on the low end of the model,” Wallace pressed, “from a hundred to two hundred thousand to 60,000.”
“In this last month, did you underestimate the strength of the virus?” he wondered. “Did we reopen too soon? Did we reopen without sufficient restrictions?”
“What I was saying in that briefing is what that model was showing,” Birx said before noting that U.S. has a lower mortality rate than some European countries.
Birx also advised Americans to enjoy Memorial Day weekend safely.
“I’m very concerned when people go out and don’t maintain social distancing,” she explained. “We now have scientific evidence of how far droplets go when we speak… We also know that it’s important that we have masks on if we’re less than six feet and that we have to maintain that six feet distance.”
“There are super spreader events when people come together,” the doctor added.
“This crowd of people at beaches this weekend, is that a super spreader event?” Wallace asked.
“We want you to be outside,” Birx replied. “We know that there are ways you can play tennis with marked balls so you’re not touching each others’ balls. We know there’s a way to play golf and social distance.”
Watch the video below from Fox News.
SINCE TRUMP WON'T FIRE HER, DEMOCRATS SHOULD DEMAND HER RESIGNATION SHE IS AN ENABLER NOT THE ADULT IN THE ROOM
Published on May 24, 2020 By David Edwards
White House coronavirus task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx defended her claim that there would be fewer than 60,000 deaths from the virus as new projections warn that the death toll could reach 150,000 people.
In an interview on Sunday, Fox News host Chris Wallace grilled Birx about the discrepancy.
“A month ago, both you and President Trump were talking about 60,000 COVID-19 deaths,” Fox News host Chris Wallace noted. “Early this week, we’re going to reach 100,000 deaths from the coronavirus and those models you’re citing now talk about close to 150,000 deaths by August.”
“What happened, doctor?” he asked.
Birx deflected the question by pointing to a model that said the United States could see over 2 million deaths if no action was taken to combat the pandemic.
Birx deflected the question by pointing to a model that said the United States could see over 2 million deaths if no action was taken to combat the pandemic.
“Those are the figures that we continue to stand by in this first wave,” she insisted. “And understanding how to prevent future hospitalizations and future deaths is really what we’re focused on every single day.”
“A month ago, you were saying we were going to come down on the low end of the model,” Wallace pressed, “from a hundred to two hundred thousand to 60,000.”
“In this last month, did you underestimate the strength of the virus?” he wondered. “Did we reopen too soon? Did we reopen without sufficient restrictions?”
“What I was saying in that briefing is what that model was showing,” Birx said before noting that U.S. has a lower mortality rate than some European countries.
Birx also advised Americans to enjoy Memorial Day weekend safely.
“I’m very concerned when people go out and don’t maintain social distancing,” she explained. “We now have scientific evidence of how far droplets go when we speak… We also know that it’s important that we have masks on if we’re less than six feet and that we have to maintain that six feet distance.”
“There are super spreader events when people come together,” the doctor added.
“This crowd of people at beaches this weekend, is that a super spreader event?” Wallace asked.
“We want you to be outside,” Birx replied. “We know that there are ways you can play tennis with marked balls so you’re not touching each others’ balls. We know there’s a way to play golf and social distance.”
Watch the video below from Fox News.
Trump adviser cornered by CNN’s Bash over the president pushing hydroxychloroquine despite risk of death
May 24, 2020 By Tom Boggioni
CNN’s Dana Bash put one of Donald Trump’s economic advisers on the spot on Sunday morning, questioning him over the safety of the president taking hydroxychloroquine to ward off the COVID-19 virus despite extreme health risks.
Speaking with senior adviser Kevin Hassett, Bash stated, “I want to ask about hydroxychloroquine. The new study this week says that the drug was associated with an increased risk of in-hospital death. President Trump, as you know, has been publicly touting the drug and says he’s been taking to it.”
CNN’s Dana Bash put one of Donald Trump’s economic advisers on the spot on Sunday morning, questioning him over the safety of the president taking hydroxychloroquine to ward off the COVID-19 virus despite extreme health risks.
Speaking with senior adviser Kevin Hassett, Bash stated, “I want to ask about hydroxychloroquine. The new study this week says that the drug was associated with an increased risk of in-hospital death. President Trump, as you know, has been publicly touting the drug and says he’s been taking to it.”
She then showed a clip of the president proclaiming, “It’s not going to kill anybody.
“It’s not going to kill anybody,” the CNN host repeated. “Well, we now know according to a major study, that is not true. The president has been giving medical advice on hydroxychloroquine. Do you think that that is putting American lives at risk?”
“The problem right now is that we’re going up against this enemy, the virus, that we don’t know how to treat yet and we’re watching treatments go through the pipeline at hospitals all around the world and aggregating data to try to learn about it,” Hassett attempted. “As Dr. [Anthony] Fauci said at press conferences, what we really need is a controlled randomized trial so we can figure this out. I think until we see a large-scale controlled randomized trial, there will be questions.”
“It’s not going to kill anybody,” the CNN host repeated. “Well, we now know according to a major study, that is not true. The president has been giving medical advice on hydroxychloroquine. Do you think that that is putting American lives at risk?”
“The problem right now is that we’re going up against this enemy, the virus, that we don’t know how to treat yet and we’re watching treatments go through the pipeline at hospitals all around the world and aggregating data to try to learn about it,” Hassett attempted. “As Dr. [Anthony] Fauci said at press conferences, what we really need is a controlled randomized trial so we can figure this out. I think until we see a large-scale controlled randomized trial, there will be questions.”
“So, unfortunately, we’re in a world where doctors all around the world are anecdotally trying things and watching to see what works and doesn’t work and they’re treating their patients accordingly,” he continued. “I wish we were in a better world where we had all these treatments that have had the gold standard trials and everybody.”
“Have you taken it?” Bash pressed. “You’re in the White House, would you take it or are you?”
“We’re really not supposed to talk about our personal health here,” he demurred. “The only reason I talk about my health in this case is I talked about it with my doctor because I think there is a lot of evidence in the lab that it could help.”
Watch below:
“Have you taken it?” Bash pressed. “You’re in the White House, would you take it or are you?”
“We’re really not supposed to talk about our personal health here,” he demurred. “The only reason I talk about my health in this case is I talked about it with my doctor because I think there is a lot of evidence in the lab that it could help.”
Watch below:
We are ‘witnessing the death rattle’ of Trump’s America: MSNBC guest
Published May 24, 2020 By Tom Boggioni
Appearing on MSNBC on Sunday morning, Princeton University Professor Eddie Glaude said the fall-out from the coronavirus pandemic that claimed nearly 100,000 lives in the U.S. and sent the country into an economic tailspin has exposed the “death rattle” of the type of America Donald Trump has made.
Speaking with host Ali Velshi, after the MSNBC host showed off the president’s collapsing approval numbers, Glaude — chair of the Department of African American Studies at Princeton — predicted the end of Trumpism.
“We’re not quite at that 100,000 number, but round numbers make us visit things,” host Velshi began. “Also it’s Memorial Day where we’re thinking about soldiers in lost times. Eddie, what’s the issue here? We’re not — we may be close to the peak, which means we are going to lose a lot more people on the way down from this peak and the president does seem to have lost focus on this issue.”
“Well, you remember Dr. [Anthony] Fauci a few months ago telling us if we did everything right we could see between 100,000 and 240,000 dead and here we are on the precipice of 100,000 souls gone, and we are opening up our economy,” he began. “What we see, I think, is that a kind of greed and selfishness is already determining how we move in this country, and we also see, I think, that for Donald Trump there are folks who are disposable, folks whose lives don’t really come into view.”
“He lacks a sense of sympathy and empathy for those who are not in his immediate purview,” he added. “I think at end of the day, and I should say this with a little caution it might sound a bit hyperbolic, I think we’re witnessing the death rattle of a particular version of America, and Donald Trump represents in a very stark way all that is wrong with us and we need to understand that for what it is.”
Watch below:
The numbers are in — and the rich are making out like bandits during this pandemic
By David Cay Johnston, DCReport @ RawStory on May 24, 2020
Tens of millions of Americans are cashless, many desperate to feed their children. Meanwhile the richest Americans merrily float on a rapidly rising tide of money thanks mainly to Trump & Co.
Now that money just sits, idle.
The Trump administration and its Radical Republican Senate allies are taking care of those who need help the least while declaring enough already for the unemployed.
Part of the answer is as simple as it is awful. The Trump administration and its Radical Republican Senate allies are taking care of those who need help the least while declaring enough already for the unemployed.
One in five families didn’t have enough food to feed their children in April.
At the same time, 36% of adults who lost their jobs to the COVID-19 pandemic or had their hours cut say they couldn’t pay their bills in April. But the Trump administration and the Republican leaders in the Senate say no more, at least not now. Yet they are rolling out proposals to give more to the richest among us.
Donald Trump promised to champion the Forgotten Man when he ran in 2016. Apparently, he forgot about innocent victims of a long-predicted infectious disaster.
But he hasn’t forgotten about the swamp creatures he brought to Washington and the ones still roaming unchecked beyond the nation’s capital.
But the four pandemic relief laws totaling $3 trillion of spending and tax breaks aren’t the only source of all this cash at the top. Not by a long shot.
Cash Deposits Grow
Cash began pouring into money funds in early March, just as the Trump pandemic was escalating
Since the beginning of March, when the coronavirus started killing a rising number of Americans, idle cash parked in institutional money market funds ballooned. The figure grewfrom less than $2.3 trillion to more than $3.3 trillion.
Try to get your head around the scale of that. In just 13 weeks companies parked $1 trillion in institutional money market funds.
Note that T–one-million million dollars. To park that much cash, companies had to deposit $11 billion each and every day.
Institutional money market funds are one of the places where large corporations and other big enterprises park money they don’t need right away. Parked cash doesn’t help revive our economy. It just sits idle like a box in the garage gathering dust.
Cash also gets deposited at commercial banks. Since the economy began its long rebound early in the Obama administration commercial bank deposits grew at 6% annually. Under Trump that fell to 4.6% until mid-March. But since then the growth in bank deposits leaped to a 15.8% rate.
Trump Policy Worsens Inequality
Consider another measure of cash, known as M1. That’s the total of all dollar bills and coins, money held in checking accounts and traveler’s checks.
By this measure the amount of cash in America grew at a 42% annual rate in the 13 weeks from Feb. 3 to May 4, Federal Reserve reports show.
That’s almost twice the highest rate ever previously—22.5% in 2011. It’s also almost seven times the average 6.3% annual growth in the basic money supply since 1976, Federal Reserve reports show.
As these numbers all show, the Trump pandemic makes inequality in America far worse. That’s not because of any unstoppable natural force or immutable principle of economics. It’s because of Trump administration policies supported by obedient Trumpers in our Congress that favor the political donor class.
The result is an abundance of cash everywhere except where it’s needed most. That’s a choice – to favor the rich. It’s not necessary or required. And it can be changed, although there is no evidence Trump will ever do so.
Triple Whammy
But for the refusal of Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats to go along with Trump & Co., the cash flow to the top would have been even greater. Pelosi’s team rewrote the coronavirus relief bills to ensure the involuntarily jobless got more, but hardly enough.
The numbers I analyzed reveal that during the pandemic the Trump administration is taking good care of the corporate rich while tossing crumbs to the people least able to withstand the economic shock of losing their paycheck and their health insurance.
And these jobless Americans now must cope with the sharpest spike in food prices since 1974, as even Fox News, aka Trump TV, reported last week.
That triple whammy of no paycheck, no health insurance and higher food prices is the reason you see miles-long lines of cars lined up at food banks. Many of those cars are shiny and new, leased or bought with loans that must be paid monthly or the vehicles will get repossessed.
For those whose pockets have been emptied by the pandemic, getting car loans is much harder than last year. At the end of 2019 not a single bank in America was tightening its requirements for auto loans, Fed data shows. Now 16% are.
Sources of Cash
A lot of the cash sitting idle came from two activities beyond the four relief laws.
One was selling stocks. In eight of the last 10 years investors took out more money out of stock funds than they invested.
All told, a net $444 billion was pulled out of the U.S. equity funds and ETFs over the past decade,” financial journalist Mark Hurlbut noted just as the pandemic was taking hold.
When the stock market started to slide many big investors reduced their holdings of company shares, generating cash that had to be parked somewhere until its spent or reinvested.
Second, many companies loaded up on new debt this year, raising cash to ride out whatever economic storms the coronavirus causes. This is not new. Companies have been taking on debt in record amounts, now more than $10 trillion, more than double compared with the turn of the century. But some companies have taken out loans or issued corporate bonds to buy back their own stock. That puts cash in the hands of investors who sell while simultaneously executives’ stock options more valuable because profits per share rise all else being equal.
But that does nothing to invest in new job-creating activities while creating new corporate tax deductions for interest paid on the debt.
All of this is encouraged by Trump, who likes to call himself “the king of debt.”
More for the Already Rich
Trump, in his disjointed and self-pitying way, says what America needs right now is another corporate tax cut. Trump and Congressional Republicans slashed the corporate profits tax rate by 40% starting in 2018.
Huge new tax breaks were included in the Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economics Security (CARES) Act. People with incomes of more than $1 million per year, roughly one in every 500 taxpayers, will get 80% of the tax savings, as we reported last month.
Larry Kudlow, a key Trump economic adviser, proposed cutting in half the corporate tax for companies who bring overseas jobs home.
The White House is also pushing for a payroll tax cut, which would benefit the highest-paid workers most and does nothing for the unemployed.
Tax cuts are the universal solvent for financial ailments in Trump World and its orbiting Republican dependencies. They are to tax cuts as the wacky father in My Big Fat Greek Wedding was to the Windex he sprayed everywhere as an all-purpose solutions to both cleaning glass and treating physical ailments.
A Pause Instead of Relief
Trump and his allies say the unemployed and small business owners whose doors have been ordered shut to block the Grump Reaper don’t need more help, at least not now.
“We need to hit pause for a while, see what has worked, what hasn’t worked and let’s see how much money—additional money—we need after the economy is opened back up,” Sen. John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican, says. He is parroting the Trump White House line.
Steve Mnuchin, Trump’s Treasury secretary, bobbed and weaved at a Tuesday Senate hearing when Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) tried to pin him down on making sure that cash sent to the corporate rich will be used properly. She wants strong contracts, their terms enforced and audits. Mnuchin complained the questions from Warren and others were unfair, but he never pledged to make sure taxpayers are treated fairly.
Trump and his allies are feeding the rich and the enterprises they control with torrents of cash because they, in turn, take care of the politicians with campaign donations, jobs for politicians and their family and friends.
What did any of those 32 million everyday Americans who lost their jobs do for the politicians except, maybe, cast a vote?
Then again, the only way to change this is by casting votes.
By David Cay Johnston, DCReport @ RawStory on May 24, 2020
Tens of millions of Americans are cashless, many desperate to feed their children. Meanwhile the richest Americans merrily float on a rapidly rising tide of money thanks mainly to Trump & Co.
My analysis of Federal Reserve data shows a record flow of greenbacks let the corporate rich pour trillions of dollars into their accounts as they fired tens of millions.
Now that money just sits, idle.
(ACTUALLY ITS NOT IDLE, UNDER THE DOMINANCE OF FINANCIAL CAPITAL IT IS MAKING MORE MONEY EVEN AT LOW INTEREST RATES, IN A STOCK MARKET RULED BY COMPUTERS THE FORMULA MARX WROTE AS M-C-M
M BEING MONEY C BEING CAPITAL/COMMODITY)
How can it be that as want ravages cash-starved Americans, money wealth rises for the already rich like the tide rushing into the Bay of Fundy?
The Trump administration and its Radical Republican Senate allies are taking care of those who need help the least while declaring enough already for the unemployed.
Part of the answer is as simple as it is awful. The Trump administration and its Radical Republican Senate allies are taking care of those who need help the least while declaring enough already for the unemployed.
One in five families didn’t have enough food to feed their children in April.
At the same time, 36% of adults who lost their jobs to the COVID-19 pandemic or had their hours cut say they couldn’t pay their bills in April. But the Trump administration and the Republican leaders in the Senate say no more, at least not now. Yet they are rolling out proposals to give more to the richest among us.
Donald Trump promised to champion the Forgotten Man when he ran in 2016. Apparently, he forgot about innocent victims of a long-predicted infectious disaster.
But he hasn’t forgotten about the swamp creatures he brought to Washington and the ones still roaming unchecked beyond the nation’s capital.
But the four pandemic relief laws totaling $3 trillion of spending and tax breaks aren’t the only source of all this cash at the top. Not by a long shot.
Cash Deposits Grow
Cash began pouring into money funds in early March, just as the Trump pandemic was escalating
Since the beginning of March, when the coronavirus started killing a rising number of Americans, idle cash parked in institutional money market funds ballooned. The figure grewfrom less than $2.3 trillion to more than $3.3 trillion.
Try to get your head around the scale of that. In just 13 weeks companies parked $1 trillion in institutional money market funds.
Note that T–one-million million dollars. To park that much cash, companies had to deposit $11 billion each and every day.
Institutional money market funds are one of the places where large corporations and other big enterprises park money they don’t need right away. Parked cash doesn’t help revive our economy. It just sits idle like a box in the garage gathering dust.
Cash also gets deposited at commercial banks. Since the economy began its long rebound early in the Obama administration commercial bank deposits grew at 6% annually. Under Trump that fell to 4.6% until mid-March. But since then the growth in bank deposits leaped to a 15.8% rate.
Trump Policy Worsens Inequality
Consider another measure of cash, known as M1. That’s the total of all dollar bills and coins, money held in checking accounts and traveler’s checks.
By this measure the amount of cash in America grew at a 42% annual rate in the 13 weeks from Feb. 3 to May 4, Federal Reserve reports show.
That’s almost twice the highest rate ever previously—22.5% in 2011. It’s also almost seven times the average 6.3% annual growth in the basic money supply since 1976, Federal Reserve reports show.
As these numbers all show, the Trump pandemic makes inequality in America far worse. That’s not because of any unstoppable natural force or immutable principle of economics. It’s because of Trump administration policies supported by obedient Trumpers in our Congress that favor the political donor class.
The result is an abundance of cash everywhere except where it’s needed most. That’s a choice – to favor the rich. It’s not necessary or required. And it can be changed, although there is no evidence Trump will ever do so.
Triple Whammy
But for the refusal of Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats to go along with Trump & Co., the cash flow to the top would have been even greater. Pelosi’s team rewrote the coronavirus relief bills to ensure the involuntarily jobless got more, but hardly enough.
The numbers I analyzed reveal that during the pandemic the Trump administration is taking good care of the corporate rich while tossing crumbs to the people least able to withstand the economic shock of losing their paycheck and their health insurance.
And these jobless Americans now must cope with the sharpest spike in food prices since 1974, as even Fox News, aka Trump TV, reported last week.
That triple whammy of no paycheck, no health insurance and higher food prices is the reason you see miles-long lines of cars lined up at food banks. Many of those cars are shiny and new, leased or bought with loans that must be paid monthly or the vehicles will get repossessed.
For those whose pockets have been emptied by the pandemic, getting car loans is much harder than last year. At the end of 2019 not a single bank in America was tightening its requirements for auto loans, Fed data shows. Now 16% are.
Sources of Cash
A lot of the cash sitting idle came from two activities beyond the four relief laws.
One was selling stocks. In eight of the last 10 years investors took out more money out of stock funds than they invested.
All told, a net $444 billion was pulled out of the U.S. equity funds and ETFs over the past decade,” financial journalist Mark Hurlbut noted just as the pandemic was taking hold.
When the stock market started to slide many big investors reduced their holdings of company shares, generating cash that had to be parked somewhere until its spent or reinvested.
Second, many companies loaded up on new debt this year, raising cash to ride out whatever economic storms the coronavirus causes. This is not new. Companies have been taking on debt in record amounts, now more than $10 trillion, more than double compared with the turn of the century. But some companies have taken out loans or issued corporate bonds to buy back their own stock. That puts cash in the hands of investors who sell while simultaneously executives’ stock options more valuable because profits per share rise all else being equal.
But that does nothing to invest in new job-creating activities while creating new corporate tax deductions for interest paid on the debt.
All of this is encouraged by Trump, who likes to call himself “the king of debt.”
More for the Already Rich
Trump, in his disjointed and self-pitying way, says what America needs right now is another corporate tax cut. Trump and Congressional Republicans slashed the corporate profits tax rate by 40% starting in 2018.
Huge new tax breaks were included in the Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economics Security (CARES) Act. People with incomes of more than $1 million per year, roughly one in every 500 taxpayers, will get 80% of the tax savings, as we reported last month.
Larry Kudlow, a key Trump economic adviser, proposed cutting in half the corporate tax for companies who bring overseas jobs home.
The White House is also pushing for a payroll tax cut, which would benefit the highest-paid workers most and does nothing for the unemployed.
Tax cuts are the universal solvent for financial ailments in Trump World and its orbiting Republican dependencies. They are to tax cuts as the wacky father in My Big Fat Greek Wedding was to the Windex he sprayed everywhere as an all-purpose solutions to both cleaning glass and treating physical ailments.
A Pause Instead of Relief
Trump and his allies say the unemployed and small business owners whose doors have been ordered shut to block the Grump Reaper don’t need more help, at least not now.
“We need to hit pause for a while, see what has worked, what hasn’t worked and let’s see how much money—additional money—we need after the economy is opened back up,” Sen. John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican, says. He is parroting the Trump White House line.
Steve Mnuchin, Trump’s Treasury secretary, bobbed and weaved at a Tuesday Senate hearing when Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) tried to pin him down on making sure that cash sent to the corporate rich will be used properly. She wants strong contracts, their terms enforced and audits. Mnuchin complained the questions from Warren and others were unfair, but he never pledged to make sure taxpayers are treated fairly.
Trump and his allies are feeding the rich and the enterprises they control with torrents of cash because they, in turn, take care of the politicians with campaign donations, jobs for politicians and their family and friends.
What did any of those 32 million everyday Americans who lost their jobs do for the politicians except, maybe, cast a vote?
Then again, the only way to change this is by casting votes.
Ralph Nader: This is no time for a dangerous, law-breaking, bungling, ignorant ship captainMay 24, 2020 By Ralph Nader, Common Dreams- Commentary
Where are the calls for Trump’s resignation? Since his first months in the White House, Trump has been the most impeachable, most lawless, most self-enriching, most bungling President in U.S. history. He relies entirely on lying and scapegoating to avoid taking responsibility for his failures. Trump didn’t even win the popular vote – the Electoral College selected him. President Trump has fomented chaos and corruption in his administration without encountering insistent demands for his resignation.
The supine Republican Senate shields Trump from any political accountability. Dominated by the evil “Moscow Mitch” McConnell, the Senate prevented Trump from being convicted under the impeachment clause of the Constitution. But Trump makes the case against himself – “I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.” Trump makes good on that statement every day, making decisions with reckless abandon and doubling down, falsely accusing people of crimes, turning our government over to big businesses, and firing inspectors general investigating crime and corruption in Trump’s regime of corporatism, favoritism, and nepotism.
Trump exercises his pouting, unstable ego as the determinant of misgoverning on a deadly scale, as with his delaying, downplaying, over-riding science, and providing lethal advice regarding the Covid-19 pandemic. For which he boastfully gives himself a perfect ten.
Trump keeps flailing, failing, and using foul-mouthed rhetoric because about 43 percent of voters stick with him, no matter what.
Well – the parents of many Trump supporters did not stay with Richard Nixon in 1974. Public demands for “Tricky Dick” to leave office ultimately included much of his “base” including scores of Republicans in Congress, led by Mr. Conservative Senator Barry Goldwater (R-AZ). Why? Nixon had defied a Congressional subpoena and committed an obstruction of justice. Trump, on the other hand, has defied many Congressional subpoenas and engaged in over a dozen obstructions of justice, many of which are ongoing.
Why no demands for resignation? Have too many Americans lost their proper sense of honest public service and accountability? From 1974 to now, the American Bar Association (ABA) – supposedly a first responder against the destruction of rule of law and constitutional observance – has done nothing to challenge above-the-law presidential abuses.
(In 2005-2006 the ABA displayed some courage and charged the Bush/Cheney administration with three sets of unconstitutional behavior.)
Many Trump voters seem to expect more of virtually every public figure who isn’t Trump! Ask Trump voters if they would support their local fire chief if he or she lied daily about the fire department’s readiness to fight fires? Would they support a fire chief who appoints firefighters with no experience? Would they support a police chief who accepts no responsibility for a street crime wave while disabling the force?
Would they support a CEO of a major hospital who promotes, against the advice of his/her medical scientists, chemicals and drugs that can take the lives of patients? Would they support a super predator bank CEO who gives sweet-heart deals to the rich at the direct expense of customers of modest means? Would they support a CEO of a big construction company, spouting anti-immigrant hate, while hiring hundreds of poorly paid undocumented foreign laborers taking jobs away from American workers? The answer is pretty clear.
These people in positions of power would have lost their jobs if they engaged in such reckless and unjust behavior. Corrupt Donald, on the other hand, has done all of these continually and remains an escapee from justice. In addition to these previously acknowledged failings, Trump has wrecked the federal health, safety, and economic protections including many life-saving controls on deadly pollution, dangerous business practices, and business theft of your earnings as consumers, workers, and savers.
In addition, here is a top betrayal: Trump promised his voters a big infrastructure repair and upgrade program in all communities – with good-paying jobs. He betrayed them, giving instead about 2 trillion dollars in tax cuts to the rich and big corporations, like the drug and banking industries and even his own family!
Trump voters need to ask themselves – what else does Trump have to do to our livelihood, health, safety, and dignity before you say – “no more!” If you want more details about Mr. Trump’s lying betrayals, read Fake President by Mark Green and me and judge Trump by his own contemptuous words and misdeeds.
Most puzzling are the many columnists – both Democratic and Republican – who week after week show how disastrously unworthy and unfit Trump is, yet never conclude with a demand for his resignation or further impeachment. Many in the opinion class may believe it would never happen. My response is that judging the odds is not the primary responsibility of a columnist. Making the demand is telling readers that your critique is serious enough to warrant a necessary remedy.
Devastating critics like Dana Milbank, Republican Michael Gerson, Eugene Robinson, Margaret Sullivan, and conservative Max Boot of the Washington Post, or Charles Blow, Paul Krugman, David Brooks, Maureen Dowd and Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times have cogently taken Trump apart on very serious matters since 2017, yet they leave their readers without the obvious conclusion -Trump has to go. A clear daily peril to innocent Americans “I’m in total control”, why not try bleach, etc. The country cannot wait until January 2021 – assuming dictatorial Donald and his determined GOP don’t criminally suppress enough votes to postpone Trump’s departure until January 2025.
Where are the calls for Trump’s resignation? Since his first months in the White House, Trump has been the most impeachable, most lawless, most self-enriching, most bungling President in U.S. history. He relies entirely on lying and scapegoating to avoid taking responsibility for his failures. Trump didn’t even win the popular vote – the Electoral College selected him. President Trump has fomented chaos and corruption in his administration without encountering insistent demands for his resignation.
The supine Republican Senate shields Trump from any political accountability. Dominated by the evil “Moscow Mitch” McConnell, the Senate prevented Trump from being convicted under the impeachment clause of the Constitution. But Trump makes the case against himself – “I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.” Trump makes good on that statement every day, making decisions with reckless abandon and doubling down, falsely accusing people of crimes, turning our government over to big businesses, and firing inspectors general investigating crime and corruption in Trump’s regime of corporatism, favoritism, and nepotism.
Trump exercises his pouting, unstable ego as the determinant of misgoverning on a deadly scale, as with his delaying, downplaying, over-riding science, and providing lethal advice regarding the Covid-19 pandemic. For which he boastfully gives himself a perfect ten.
Trump keeps flailing, failing, and using foul-mouthed rhetoric because about 43 percent of voters stick with him, no matter what.
Well – the parents of many Trump supporters did not stay with Richard Nixon in 1974. Public demands for “Tricky Dick” to leave office ultimately included much of his “base” including scores of Republicans in Congress, led by Mr. Conservative Senator Barry Goldwater (R-AZ). Why? Nixon had defied a Congressional subpoena and committed an obstruction of justice. Trump, on the other hand, has defied many Congressional subpoenas and engaged in over a dozen obstructions of justice, many of which are ongoing.
Why no demands for resignation? Have too many Americans lost their proper sense of honest public service and accountability? From 1974 to now, the American Bar Association (ABA) – supposedly a first responder against the destruction of rule of law and constitutional observance – has done nothing to challenge above-the-law presidential abuses.
Many Trump voters seem to expect more of virtually every public figure who isn’t Trump! Ask Trump voters if they would support their local fire chief if he or she lied daily about the fire department’s readiness to fight fires? Would they support a fire chief who appoints firefighters with no experience? Would they support a police chief who accepts no responsibility for a street crime wave while disabling the force?
Would they support a CEO of a major hospital who promotes, against the advice of his/her medical scientists, chemicals and drugs that can take the lives of patients? Would they support a super predator bank CEO who gives sweet-heart deals to the rich at the direct expense of customers of modest means? Would they support a CEO of a big construction company, spouting anti-immigrant hate, while hiring hundreds of poorly paid undocumented foreign laborers taking jobs away from American workers? The answer is pretty clear.
These people in positions of power would have lost their jobs if they engaged in such reckless and unjust behavior. Corrupt Donald, on the other hand, has done all of these continually and remains an escapee from justice. In addition to these previously acknowledged failings, Trump has wrecked the federal health, safety, and economic protections including many life-saving controls on deadly pollution, dangerous business practices, and business theft of your earnings as consumers, workers, and savers.
In addition, here is a top betrayal: Trump promised his voters a big infrastructure repair and upgrade program in all communities – with good-paying jobs. He betrayed them, giving instead about 2 trillion dollars in tax cuts to the rich and big corporations, like the drug and banking industries and even his own family!
Trump voters need to ask themselves – what else does Trump have to do to our livelihood, health, safety, and dignity before you say – “no more!” If you want more details about Mr. Trump’s lying betrayals, read Fake President by Mark Green and me and judge Trump by his own contemptuous words and misdeeds.
Most puzzling are the many columnists – both Democratic and Republican – who week after week show how disastrously unworthy and unfit Trump is, yet never conclude with a demand for his resignation or further impeachment. Many in the opinion class may believe it would never happen. My response is that judging the odds is not the primary responsibility of a columnist. Making the demand is telling readers that your critique is serious enough to warrant a necessary remedy.
Devastating critics like Dana Milbank, Republican Michael Gerson, Eugene Robinson, Margaret Sullivan, and conservative Max Boot of the Washington Post, or Charles Blow, Paul Krugman, David Brooks, Maureen Dowd and Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times have cogently taken Trump apart on very serious matters since 2017, yet they leave their readers without the obvious conclusion -Trump has to go. A clear daily peril to innocent Americans “I’m in total control”, why not try bleach, etc. The country cannot wait until January 2021 – assuming dictatorial Donald and his determined GOP don’t criminally suppress enough votes to postpone Trump’s departure until January 2025.
Sailing around the top of the world
Arctic icebreaker fleets, 2020
Cécile Marin, May 2020
Sources: Pauline Pic, ‘Naviguer en Arctique’, Géoconfluences, February 2020; National Snow and Ice Data Center, nsidc.org; ‘Maritime jurisdiction and boundaries in the Arctic region’, IBRU, University of Durham, 2019; USCG Office of Waterways and Ocean Policy, 2019; Northern Sea Route Information Office,arctic-lio.com www.marinetraffic.com
(1) IPCC, ‘Special Report: Global Warming of 1.5°C’, 2019.
(2) ‘Arctic Report Card’, US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2019.
(3) The Southern, Austral or Antarctic Ocean is conventionally defined as all waters south of latitude 60°S, and covers 20 million sq km, compared with 12 million for the Arctic Ocean.
(4) LM Polvani et al, ‘Substantial twentieth-century Arctic warming caused by ozone-depleting substances’, Nature Climate Change, no 10, February 2020.
(5) Distances calculated on app.aquaplot.com/.
(6) Article 234 on ‘Ice-covered areas’.
(7) Pierre Thorez, ‘La Route maritime du Nord: les promesses d’une seconde vie’ (The Northern Sea Route: promise of a second life), Le Courrier des pays de l’Est, no 1066, March-April 2008.
(8) ‘NSR shipping traffic — Transits in 2019’, Centre for High North Logistics, arctic-lio.com/.
(9) See Philippe Descamps, ‘Polar gas tap’, Le Monde diplomatique, English edition, July 2016.
(10) Ukase (decree) of 5 March.
(11) Hervé Baudu, ‘La Route maritime du Nord, réalité et perspectives’ (The Northern Sea Route:current status and outlook), Regards géopolitiques, no 5, autumn 2019, Conseil Québécois d’Études Géopolitiques, Université Laval, Quebec.
(12) Hervé Baudu, ‘La flotte mondiale de navires brise-glaces’ (The global icebreaker fleet), Regards géopolitiques, no 4, winter 2018.
(13) Agreement Between the Government of Canada and the Government of the United States of America on Arctic Cooperation, 11 January 1988.
(14) Arctic Today, 21 February 2020.
(15) Sébastien Pelletier and Frédéric Lasserre, ‘Intérêt de la Chine pour l’Arctique: analyse de l’incident entourant le passage du brise-glace Xue Long en 1999 à Tuktoyaktuk, Territoires du Nord-Ouest’ (China’s interest in the Arctic), Monde chinois, no 41, Paris, 2015.
(16) ‘Why is China building a 30,000-ton nuclear-powered icebreaker?’, China Military online (People’s Liberation Army website), 2 July 2018.
see also
Antarctic icebreaker fleets
C. M. aperçu
Maritime trade routes, 2020
C. M. aperçu
The era of the icebreaker
Sandrine Baccaro & Ph. D.
Icebreakers are crucial to developing Arctic trade routes being opened up by global warming. Russia is expanding its nuclear fleet, China invites tenders for its own and (...)
Russia: the polar grab
Dominique Kopp • September 2007
Eyes on the ice
Miyase Christensen, Annika E Nilsson & Nina Wormbs • November 2013
Geopolitics and the polar bear
Farid Benhammou & Rémy Marion • November 2015
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)