IMF urges public spending to create jobs for COVID-19 recovery
PRIME THE PUMP

NOT THE AUSTERITY AXE

A masked woman passes an office tower in Moscow, Russia, on May 2. The IMF warned earlier this summer that global growth could contract by nearly 5% and imperil "significant progress" made since the 1990s. File Photo by Yuri Kochetkov/EPA-EFE

Oct. 5 (UPI) -- Governments should significantly boost social and infrastructure spending during the coronavirus pandemic to leverage millions of new jobs in the post-COVID-19 world, the International Monetary Fund said Monday.

IMF economists in a new report advocated borrowing at current low interest rates to bolster public investments in key areas such as healthcare, public housing, digitalization and environmental protection -- which, they say, could create 7 million jobs directly and more than 30 million jobs total.

"Public investment can play a central role in the recovery, with the potential to generate, directly, between two and eight jobs for every million dollars spent on traditional infrastructure, and between five and 14 jobs for every million spent on research and development, green electricity, and efficient buildings," they wrote.

The international bank predicted in June that global growth would contract by nearly 5% this year, imperiling "the significant progress made in reducing extreme poverty in the world since the 1990s."

RELATED St. Louis Fed chief: Good Q3 would put U.S. near 'sort of full recovery'

That contraction could actually be higher, the IMF said, with a second wave in Europe and high case numbers in the United States heading into the colder winter months.

The bank said increasing public investment by 1% of GDP "could strengthen confidence in the recovery" -- if the investments "are of high quality" and the resulting debt burdens "do not weaken the response of the private sector to the stimulus."

Despite soaring debt levels in many advanced and emerging countries, the IMF said low interest rates signal the time is right to invest.

"Savings are plenty, the private sector is in waiting mode, and many people are unemployed and able to take up jobs created through public investment," the report said.

With private investment depressed and the economic outlook uncertain due to the continuing pandemic, the IMF said, "the time is now to undertake high quality public investment, in priority projects. It can be done by borrowing at low cost."

Pope criticizes lack of unity, capitalism amid pandemic

Pope Francis warned nations in his third encyclical against growing nationalism. Pool Photo by Possolo/Spaziani/UPI | License Photo


Oct. 5 (UPI) -- Pope Francis said the coronavirus pandemic has laid bare the failures of both global cooperation and capitalism while warning countries against growing nationalism.

In his third encyclical, the most authoritative of the papal teachings, published Sunday, Francis said the pandemic hit as he was preparing the document, and it has shown the world's inability to work together.

"For all our hyper-connectivity, we witnessed a fragmentation that made it more difficult to resolve problems that affect us all," he said. "Anyone who thinks that the only lesson to be learned was the need to improve what we were already doing, or to refine existing systems and regulations, is denying reality."

He said in the lengthy encyclical titled Brothers All that the world lacks a "shared roadmap" and that the pandemic has only made it more evident the need to rethink not only how the world organizes its societies but the meanings of their existence.

"If everything is connected, it is hard to imagine that this global disaster is unrelated to our way of approaching reality, our claim to be absolute masters of our own lives and all that exists," he wrote. "Unless we recover that shared passion to create a community of belonging and solidarity worthy of our time, our energy and our resources, the global illusion that misled us will collapse and leave many in the grip of anguish and emptiness."

The "worst response" the world could take to the ending of the pandemic would be to plunge even deeper into consumerism and other forms of "egotistic self-preservation," he wrote in the encyclical signed Saturday at the tomb of St. Francis of Assisi, the pope's namesake.

The marketplace, he said, cannot solve all of humanity's problems as it resorts to the same "magic theories" as solutions to inequality, which creates violence that threatens the stability of society.

Instead of coming together, the world has shown signs of regression, he wrote, stating that old conflicts have reignited, and "myopic, extremist, resentful and aggressive nationalism" has grown, leading to new forms of selfishness created under the guise of defending national interests.

The pope wrote that some good has come from the pandemic, as it has enabled the world to see and appreciated those who put their lives at risk to save others.

"We began to realize that our lives are interwoven with and sustained by ordinary people valiantly shaping the decisive events of our shared history," he wrote. "They understood that no one is saved alone."

Pope: Market capitalism has failed in pandemic, needs reform
By NICOLE WINFIELD AP

1 of 5

Pope Francis waves during the Angelus noon prayer delivered from his studio window overlooking St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Sunday, Oct. 4, 2020. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)


ROME (AP) — Pope Francis says the coronavirus pandemic has proven that the “magic theories” of market capitalism have failed and that the world needs a new type of politics that promotes dialogue and solidarity and rejects war at all costs.

Francis on Sunday laid out his vision for a post-COVID world by uniting the core elements of his social teachings into a new encyclical aimed at inspiring a revived sense of the human family. “Fratelli Tutti” (Brothers All) was released on the feast day of his namesake, the peace-loving St. Francis of Assisi.

The document draws its inspiration from the teachings of St. Francis and the pope’s previous preaching on the injustices of the global economy and its destruction of the planet and pairs them with his call for greater human solidarity to confront the “dark clouds over a closed world.”

In the encyclical, Francis rejected even the Catholic Church’s own doctrine justifying war as a means of legitimate defense, saying it had been too broadly applied over the centuries and was no longer viable.

“It is very difficult nowadays to invoke the rational criteria elaborated in earlier centuries to speak of the possibility of a ‘just war,’” Francis wrote in the most controversial new element of the encyclical.

Francis had started writing the encyclical, the third of his pontificate, before the coronavirus struck and its bleak diagnosis of a human family falling apart goes far beyond the problems posed by the outbreak. He said the pandemic, however, had confirmed his belief that current political and economic institutions must be reformed to address the legitimate needs of the people most harmed by the coronavirus.

“Aside from the differing ways that various countries responded to the crisis, their inability to work together became quite evident,” Francis wrote. “Anyone who thinks that the only lesson to be learned was the need to improve what we were already doing, or to refine existing systems and regulations, is denying reality.”

He cited the grave loss of millions of jobs as a result of the virus as evidence of the need for politicians to listen to popular movements, unions and marginalized groups and to craft more just social and economic policies.

“The fragility of world systems in the face of the pandemic has demonstrated that not everything can be resolved by market freedom,” he wrote. “It is imperative to have a proactive economic policy directed at ‘promoting an economy that favours productive diversity and business creativity’ and makes it possible for jobs to be created, and not cut.”

He denounced populist politics that seek to demonize and isolate, and called for a “culture of encounter” that promotes dialogue, solidarity and a sincere effort at working for the common good.

As an outgrowth of that, Francis rejected the concept of an absolute right to property for individuals, stressing instead the “social purpose” and common good that must come from sharing the Earth’s resources. He repeated his criticism of the “perverse” global economic system, which he said consistently keeps the poor on the margins while enriching the few — an argument he made most fully in his 2015 landmark environmental encyclical “Laudato Sii” (Praised Be).

Francis also rejected “trickle-down” economic theory as he did in the first major mission statement of his papacy, the 2013 Evangelii Gaudium, (The Joy of the Gospel), saying it simply doesn’t achieve what it claims.

“Neo-liberalism simply reproduces itself by resorting to magic theories of ‘spillover’ or ‘trickle’ — without using the name — as the only solution to societal problems,” he wrote. “There is little appreciation of the fact that the alleged ‘spillover’ does not resolve the inequality that gives rise to new forms of violence threatening the fabric of society.”

Francis’ English-language biographer, Austen Ivereigh, said with its two key predecessors, the new encyclical amounts to the final part of a triptych of papal teachings and may well be the last of the pontificate.

“There is little doubt that these three documents ... will be considered the teaching backbone of the Francis era,” Ivereigh wrote in Commonweal magazine.

Francis made clear the text had wide circulation, printing the encyclical in the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano and distributing it free in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday to mark the resumption of printed editions following a hiatus during the COVID-19 lockdown.

Much of the new encyclical repeats Francis’ well-known preaching about the need to welcome and value migrants and his rejection of the nationalistic, isolationist policies of many of today’s political leaders.

He dedicated an entire chapter to the parable of the Good Samaritan, saying its lesson of charity, kindness and looking out for strangers was “the basic decision we need to make in order to rebuild our wounded world.”

“That a theme so ancient is spoken with such urgency now is because Pope Francis fears a detachment from the view that we are all really responsible for all, all related to all, all entitled to a just share of what has been given for the good of all,” said Anna Rowlands, professor of Catholic social thought at Britain’s University of Durham, who was on hand to present the encyclical Sunday at the Vatican.

Francis enshrined in the encyclical his previous rejection of both the nuclear arms race and the death penalty, which he said was “inadmissible” in all cases.

Francis’ call for greater “human fraternity,” particularly to promote peace, is derived from his 2019 joint appeal with the grand imam of Egypt’s Al-Azhar, the revered 1,000-year-old seat of Sunni Islam. Their “Human Fraternity” document established the relationship between Catholics and Muslims as brothers, with a common mission to promote peace.

The fact the he has now integrated that Catholic-Muslim document into an encyclical is significant, given Francis’ conservative critics had already blasted the “Human Fraternity” document as heretical, given it stated that God had willed the “pluralism and diversity of religions.”

Vatican encyclicals are the most authoritative form of papal teaching and they traditionally take their titles from the first two words of the document. In this case, “Fratelli Tutti” is a quote from the “Admonitions,” the guidelines penned by St. Francis in the 13th century.

The title of the encyclical had sparked controversy in the English-speaking world, with critics noting that a straight translation of the word “fratelli” (brothers) excludes women. The Vatican has insisted that the plural form of the word “fratelli” is gender-inclusive.

Francis’ decision to sign the document in Assisi, where he travelled on Saturday, and release it on the saint’s feast day is yet further evidence of the outsized influence St. Francis has had on the papacy of the Jesuit pope.

Francis is the first pope to name himself after the mendicant friar, who renounced a wealthy, dissolute lifestyle to embrace a life of poverty and service to the poor.
_

Pope says free market, 'trickle-down' policies fail society
By Philip Pullella 

© Reuters/REMO CASILLI Pope Francis delivers Angelus prayer at the Vatican

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis said on Sunday that the COVID-19 pandemic was the latest crisis to prove that market forces alone and "trickle-down" economic policies had failed to produce the social benefits their proponents claim.

In an encyclical on the theme of human fraternity, Francis also said private property cannot be considered an absolute right in all cases where some lived extravagantly while others had nothing.

Called "Fratelli Tutti" (Brothers All), the encyclical's title prompted criticism for not using inclusive language after it was announced last month.

In Italian, Fratelli means brothers but it is also used to mean brothers and sisters. The Vatican said it was taken from the "Admonitions", or guidelines, written by St Francis of Assisi in the 13th century to his followers and could not be changed.

© Reuters/REMO CASILLI Pope Francis delivers Angelus prayer at the Vatican

The pope says in the first line of the 86-page encyclical that St. Francis had "addressed his brothers and sisters" that way. In the document, he uses the term "men and women" 15 times and speaks several times about defending the rights and dignity of women.

© Reuters/REMO CASILLI Pope Francis delivers Angelus prayer at the Vatican

Encyclicals are the most authoritative form of papal writing but they are not infallible.

The encyclical, which Francis signed in Assisi on Saturday, covers topics such as fraternity, immigration, the rich-poor gap, economic and social injustices, healthcare imbalances and the widening political polarisation in many countries.

The pope took direct aim at trickle-down economics, the theory favoured by conservatives that tax breaks and other incentives for big business and the wealthy eventually will benefit the rest of society through investment and job creation.

"There were those who would have had us believe that freedom of the market was sufficient to keep everything secure (after the pandemic hit)," he wrote.

Francis denounced "this dogma of neo-liberal faith" that resorts to "the magic theories of 'spillover' or 'trickle' ... as the only solution to societal problems". A good economic policy, he said, "makes it possible for jobs to be created and not cut".

© Reuters/REMO CASILLI Pope Francis delivers Angelus prayer at the Vatican

'EMPIRE OF MONEY'

The 2007-2008 financial crisis was a missed opportunity for change, instead producing "increased freedom for the truly powerful, who always find a way to escape unscathed". Society must confront "the destructive effects of the empire of money".

Francis repeated past calls for redistribution of wealth to help the poorest and for fairer access to natural resources by all.

"The right to private property can only be considered a secondary natural right, derived from the principle of the universal destination of created goods," he said.

A Vatican official said the pope was referring to those with massive wealth.

The pope wrote that the belief of early Christians - "that if one person lacks what is necessary to live with dignity, it is because another person is detaining it" - was still valid.

Those with much must "administer it for the good of all" and rich nations are obliged to share wealth with poor ones. But he said he was "certainly not proposing an authoritarian and abstract universalism".

Some ultra-traditionalist Catholics have accused Francis of secretly backing a perceived plot for a "One-World Government," a debunked conspiracy theory.

Without naming countries or people, Francis condemned politicians who "seek popularity by appealing to the basest and most selfish inclinations" or who enact policies of "hatred and fear towards other nations".

Addressing racism, a key issue in the United States following the Black Lives Matter movement, Francis

said: "Racism is a virus that quickly mutates and, instead of disappearing, goes into hiding, and lurks in waiting."

He repeated calls for the abolition of nuclear weapons and the death penalty, positions which have been assailed by conservative Catholics, particularly in the United States.

(Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Giles Elgood)

#LIVINGWAGE  #FIGHTFOR25
Geneva residents vote to institute $25 per hour minimum wage


Geneva's new minimum wage will take effect Nov. 1. Photo by Stéphane Pecorini via Wikimedia Commons

Oct. 3 (UPI) -- Residents of Geneva, Switzerland, voted this week to introduce a minimum wage that is believed to be the highest in the world.

More than half -- 58% -- of voters in the canton, or state, of Geneva, voted to set the minimum wage 23 francs an hour, the equivalent of $25 an hour.
The initiative was backed by a coalition of labor unions, and is expected to affect about 6% of Geneva's workers when it takes effect Nov. 1.
Switzerland has no national minimum wage law, but Geneva is the fourth of the country's 26 cantons to vote on a minimum wage in recent years.

Geneva voters had previously rejected initiatives to introduce a minimum wage -- twice.

The unions that backed the initiative argued that it was impossible to live in dignity in Geneva making less than $25 per hour, or $4,437.51 per month for a full-time, 41-hour work week.

Rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Geneva costs at least $3,258 francs, and long lines of people waiting for handouts of food and other necessities have been common as the coronavirus pandemic has progressed.

Trio of scientists win Nobel Prize in Physics for black hole research


Roger Penrose (L), Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez were awarded the prize on Tuesday. Illustration by Niklas Elmehed/Nobel Media


Oct. 6 (UPI) -- A trio of scientists from the United States, Britain and Germany jointly won the Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday for discoveries about black holes, the Norwegian Nobel Institute announced.

British mathematician and physicist Roger Penrose won half of the prize and the other half was shared by German astrophysicist Reinhard Genzel and American astronomer Andrea Ghez.

The prize was announced during a ceremony at the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, which awards the honor each year.

Penrose was recognized for his work at Birkbeck College in London during the 1960s, during which he used revolutionary mathematical equations to prove the existence of black holes and to determine they were a direct consequence of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity

Black holes, he showed, are super-heavy masses capturing everything that enters them, even light, hiding singularities in which all the known laws of nature cease. His 1965 paper, "Gravitational collapse and space-time singularities," not only explained black holes but also set the stage for discoveries about the cosmological "Big Bang."

Genzel and Ghez have each focused their work on a region at the center of the Milky Way galaxy called Sagittarius A, where an extremely heavy, invisible object is thought to be pulling million of stars together into a small area at extremely high speeds.

Genzel, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and Ghez, who teaches at the University of California, Los Angeles, each were honored for developing new techniques in which powerful telescopes can be used to observe Sagittarius A and uncover new information about a powerful black hole at the center of the galaxy.

"The discoveries of this year's Laureates have broken new ground in the study of compact and supermassive objects," said David Haviland, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics.

"But these exotic objects still pose many questions that beg for answers and motivate future research. Not only questions about their inner structure, but also questions about how to test our theory of gravity under the extreme conditions in the immediate vicinity of a black hole."

The Nobel Institute's prize for medicine was awarded Monday to Americans Harvey J. Alter, Charles M. Rice and Briton Michael Houghton for their work on curing Hepatitis C.

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry will be announced Wednesday, to be followed by the literature prize on Thursday, the peace prize on Friday and the prize for economic sciences on Oct. 12.


U.S., British hepatitis C researchers win Nobel Prize in Medicine

Americans Harvey Alter and Charles Rice and Briton Michael Houghton were honored Monday for their work with hepatitis C. Image by Niklas Elmehed/Nobel Foundation

Oct. 5 (UPI) -- Three scientists who each played a role in finding a cure for hepatitis C have won this year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, the Nobel Foundation announced Monday.

Americans Harvey J. Alter and Charles M. Rice and Briton Michael Houghton won the 2020 prize for their separate work in battling hepatitis C, a blood-borne disease that causes cirrhosis of the liver and liver cancer.

The disease is associated with significant morbidity and mortality and causes more than 1 million deaths per year worldwide, making it a global health threat on a scale comparable to HIV infection and tuberculosis.

The prize was announced during a ceremony at the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, which awards the honor each year.

Two other types of hepatitis -- A and B -- had been identified earlier, but a still-unknown form had continued to affect blood transfusion patients.

In the 1970s, Alter, working at the U.S. National Institutes of Health, first showed that the condition was caused by a previously unknown, distinct virus, later named the hepatitis C virus.

Identifying the virus, however, eluded researchers for more than a decade. Houghton, then working for the Chiron Corp. in California, was able to isolate the genetic sequence of the virus in 1989, providing a key breakthrough.

With the virus identified, researchers still needed to prove that it alone was capable of causing hepatitis. Rice, a scientist at Washington University in St. Louis, provided the link in 2005 after eight years of research.

The scientists' contributions have "essentially eliminated post-transfusion hepatitis in many parts of the world, greatly improving global health," the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine said.

"Their discovery also allowed the rapid development of antiviral drugs directed at hepatitis C," it added. "For the first time in history, the disease can now be cured, raising hopes of eradicating hepatitis C virus from the world population."

The Nobel Institute's two other scientific prizes -- for physics and chemistry -- will be announced Tuesday and Wednesday. They will be followed by the literature prize on Thursday, the peace prize on Friday and economic sciences on Oct. 12.

Court rules Venezuela can claim $1.8B in gold stored in Britain


The Venezuelan government has been keeping about $1.8 billion worth of gold in the Bank of England in London, Britain. File Photo by Andy Rain/EPA-EFE

Oct. 5 (UPI) -- A British appeals court in London overturned a lower ruling Monday to clear the way for the Venezuelan government to receive a stash of gold worth nearly $2 billion it had stored in the Bank of England.

A lower court ruled this summer that President Nicolas Maduro's government could not lay claim to the gold because the British government had recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as the "constitutional interim" president of Venezuela.

The appeals court, in setting aside the earlier decision, ruled that the British Home Office needed to clarify its position and noted that London still maintains full diplomatic relations with Maduro's government.

The Venezuelan government had said it needs the gold for humanitarian purposes due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Maduro remains in control of the Venezuelan government and its military.

The Banco Central de Venezuela sued the Bank of England in May to control its gold. Maduro initially asked the bank to remove the gold in 2018, which was then worth about $550 million. The stash now is estimated to be worth $1.8 billion.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Antivirus software magnate John McAfee indicted for tax evasion


U.S. software entrepreneur John McAfee has been arrested in Spain and faces tax evasion charges in the United States. File Photo by Saul Martinez/EPA

Oct. 5 (UPI) -- Federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment on Monday charging antivirus software creator John McAfee with tax evasion and willful failure to file tax returns.

The Justice Department said in a statement that McAfee failed to file tax returns from 2014 to 2018 despite earning millions from promoting cryptocurrencies, consulting work, speaking engagements and selling the rights to his life story for a documentary.

The 10-count Indictment accuses McAfee of failing to pay taxes by having his earnings deposited into bank and cryptocurrency exchange accounts under the names of others while attempting to evade the Internal Revenue Service by concealing property, vehicles and a yacht in the same manner.

The amount the antivirus software magnate owes was not disclosed, but if convicted he faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison for each count of evasion and one year for each count of willful failure to file a tax return.

Prosecutors said the June 15 indictment was unsealed following McAfee's arrest in Spain, where he is pending extradition.

The unsealing of the indictment came after the Securities and Exchange Commission announced Monday that it had filed civil charges against McAfee for accepting more than $23.2 million in exchange for promoting seven cryptocurrency investments to his 1 million Twitter followers without disclosing he was paid to do so.

The SEC said McAfee made "false and misleading statements" to investors, such as claiming he had personally invested in initial coin offerings he was advertising.

"McAfee falsely claimed to be an investor and/or a technical advisor when he recommended several ICOs, creating the impression that he had vetted these companies, that they were benefiting from his technical expertise and that he was willing to invest his own money in the ventures," the SEC complaint said. "In reality, McAfee's tweets were paid promotions disguised as impartial investment advice."

Jimmy Watson, Jr., McAfee's bodyguard, was also charged by the SEC for negotiating the promotion deals with the initial coin offerings, aiding McAfee to cash out the digital payments received for the promotions and for having his spouse tweet interest in one of the cryptocurrencies.

"McAfee, assisted by Watson, allegedly leveraged his fame to deceptively tout numerous digital asset securities to his followers without informing investors of his role as a paid promoter," said Kristina Littman, cyber unit chief at the SEC.

The pair face charges of violating anti-fraud provisions of the federal securities law while McAfee has been individually charged with violating anti-touting provisions and Watson has been charged with aiding and abetting McAfee's violations.

"The complaint seeks permanent injunctive relief, conduct-based injunctions, return of allegedly ill-gotten gains and civil penalties," the SEC said, adding that it also asks for McAfee to be barred from serving as a public company officer or director.

Groundwater depletion means 'peak grain' has come, gone for some High Plains states

Grain production in Texas and Kansas is expected to decline in the decades ahead as a result of groundwater depletion. Photo by Mark Meyers/Flickr

Oct. 6 (UPI) -- Peak grain has already passed for several High Plains states, according to a new survey of groundwater depletion across the region.

To more accurately predict future grain yields, researchers looked at the relationship between levels of water extraction from the Ogallala aquifer and the amounts of grain harvested in each state over the last 50 years.

Researchers adapted analysis techniques previously used to study the relationship between peak oil production and peak grain production. The research team detailed the results of their analysis in a new paper, published Tuesday in the journal PNAS.

"We were inspired by insightful analyses of U.S. crude oil production," lead study author Assaad Mrad, doctoral candidate at Duke University, said in a news release. "They predicted a peak in crude oil production a decade in advance."

RELATED Internationally traded crops are shrinking globe's underground aquifers

The new analysis showed Texas and Kansas reached peak grain in 2016. Grain yields in the two High Plains states have been declining over the last four years. Without new yield-boosting technologies, grain production in Texas could decline as much as 40 percent by 2050.

Water demand has outstripped supply in recent years, researchers said, as a result of excessive aquifer extraction and delays in irrigation regulations designed to sustainably manage water usage.

"This shows quite clearly that the aquifers are not being used in a sustainable way and it's essential to find new technologies that can irrigate crops in a sustainable way," said study co-author David Hannah, professor at the University of Birmingham.

RELATED We're not running out of water -- a better way to measure scarcity

Unlike Texas and Kansas, Nebraska enjoys a wetter climate. Rainfall in Nebraska has allowed farmers to expand grain production without increasing groundwater pumping.

Overall, the latest findings suggest depleted groundwater levels will continue to pose a serious threat to grain production across the High Plains. Many farmers in the region rely on the Ogallala aquifer to supply as much as 90 percent of their irrigation.

"Overall, the picture we see emerging from these calculations is bleak," Hannah said. "The ultimate consequence of the aquifers continuing to be overused will be the decline and collapse of grain production. We have already seen this happen in Texas, where over the course of fifty years, peak water use has twice led to peak grain production followed by production crashes."

Donald Trump’s narcissism betrays a fragile ego lashing out in rage

The popular notion that narcissists are endowed with an extraordinary reservoir of confidence, self-importance and unconditional self-regard is mistaken

Narcissists like Trump try to mask their shortcomings and constantly attack others to protect their own fragile egos from being exposed and collapsing

Bertie Wai Published: 3 Oct, 2020

Illustration: Craig Stephens

The fiery US presidential debate between President Donald Trump and Joe Biden set the internet ablaze with criticism. The debate was described as chaotic, messy and a national embarrassment. CNN’s Jake Tapper summed up the debate in a colourful analogy: “That was a hot mess inside a dumpster fire inside a train wreck.”

Negative reviews rained on Trump’s self-congratulating parade, criticising him as a bully for bulldozing Biden and steamrollering Chris Wallace, the moderator of the debate. The 90-plus-minute barrage of personal attacks, insults, interruptions and incoherence was often credited to Trump’s lack of integrity, intelligence and decorum.
Mary Trump, a clinical psychologist and Donald Trump’s niece, wrote the book
Too Much and Never Enough which gave an insider’s view of how family influences helped shape Donald Trump. She said her uncle’s “debate performance was a grotesque combination of lies, racism, breathtaking callousness, and threats against our democracy”.

One of the labels mental health professionals often ascribe to Donald Trump is narcissism. In fact, the extensive broadcast of Trump’s ruthless thoughts and reckless behaviour has raised such alarm that many psychiatrists and mental health professionals in the United States are warning about the dangers of Trump’s narcissistic personality disorder (NPD).

This is exceptional because it flies in the face of the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA)
Goldwater Rule, which prohibits psychiatrists from diagnosing or commenting on the mental health of public figures without examination and consent.

There is an ongoing debate in the psychiatric community whether the Goldwater Rule should still be observed at an unusual time like this, when the unprecedented hazards that a commander-in-chief’s detrimental mental health condition can pose to national welfare and public safety are no longer contained within a reality TV show.

What is a narcissist? A common understanding is someone who is grandiose, entitled and lacks empathy. These descriptions fit what we often see on TV, where Trump never gets tired of reiterating he is the best, greatest and most presidential-est and is often portrayed as caring for no one but himself. Trump’s own sister Maryanne Trump Barry is known to have said, “Donald‘s out for Donald. Period.”

One might see a narcissist as someone who is endowed with an
extraordinary reservoir of confidence, self-importance and unconditional self-regard.

One could imagine a narcissist as basking in the blessed haven of an inflated ego under the eternal sunshine of gratifying thoughts about one’s greatness. Snow White’s evil queen comes to mind: “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, of course I am the prettiest of all!”

Those who work with NPD in a clinical setting are familiar with a psychological reality that is in stark contrast to the common myth. The psychological structure responsible for NPD is actually a very fragile ego. Because it is too painful to get in touch with such fragility, the narcissist goes to extreme lengths to banish any inkling of their own imperfections.
Mary Trump had this to say about her uncle: “Donald’s ego has been and is a fragile and inadequate barrier between him and the real world, which, thanks to his father’s money and power, he never had to negotiate by himself.

“Donald has always needed to perpetuate the fiction my grandfather started that he is strong, smart and otherwise extraordinary, because facing the truth – that he is none of those things – is too terrifying for him to contemplate.”

If it is too terrifying to contemplate one’s lack’s of extraordinary qualities, why can’t one just decide to not face it? Problem solved, right? Not so fast. Our psychology operates on different levels.

Even though we might be somewhat successful at times at shutting out an
inconvenient aspect of reality, we are still aware of it on a deeper level. This is one of the reasons material we don’t want to deal with in waking life shows up in our dreams in disguised forms.

The mirror that reveals Snow White as the prettiest of all is mirroring back a view the evil queen is too terrified to contemplate: she is not, in fact, the prettiest of all. Mary Trump had something similar to say of Donald Trump, who “began to believe his own hype, even as he paradoxically suspected on a very deep level that nobody else did”.



This is the plague of narcissism. Narcissists are persecuted by a fragile, impoverished ego; the only recourse to avoid the painful realisation of their fragility is to continuously inflate the ego as a countermeasure to keep their fragile ego from collapsing.

When the mirror on the wall sends back a view that challenges the evil queen’s inflated sense of her prettiness, she responds with a murderous rage. This is not an uncommon response from a narcissist – any threat to their sense of superiority will be
met with rage.

Mary Trump observed that, “Donald met any challenges to his sense of superiority with anger, his fear and vulnerabilities so effectively buried that he didn’t even have to acknowledge they existed.”

Trump wants no rule changes after chaotic debate, declares himself winner
2 Oct 2020


It sounds like a tragedy that, “there would be no love for Donald at all, just his agonising thirsting for it. The rage, left to grow, would come to overshadow everything else”.

Donald Trump’s rage whenever challenged is as predictable as 1+1=2. The president said so himself on Twitter: “When someone attacks me, I always attack back...except 100x more. This has nothing to do with a tirade but rather, a way of life!”

The psychological reality a narcissist has to contend with is very far from a blessed haven of warm and fuzzy feelings for oneself. It is a psychological warfare that has no place for peace because one has to keep up the attacks on others to protect one’s fragile ego from being exposed and collapsing.



Dr Bertie Wai is a bilingual clinical psychologist at Beautiful Mind Therapy and Family Services in Central. She provides therapy to children, teens, adults and couples, as well as parenting consultation.

Trump’s Covid-19 diagnosis sparks worries in Asia – and the headline ‘Life’s a bleach’

Asian governments are worried about a possible leadership vacuum in the White House if the US President falls seriously ill or there is a delay in the election

Newspapers across the region splashed Trump’s diagnosis across their front pages with one West Australian tabloid using the headline ‘Life’s a bleach’


Kok Xinghui and Dewey Sim in Singapore
Published: 3 Oct, 2020


US President Donald Trump disembarks from the Marine One helicopter as he arrives at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Friday following his diagnosis with coronavirus. Photo: EPA

US President Donald Trump’s Covid-19 diagnosis on Friday has sparked concern across Asia about the possibility of the US election in November being delayed and a leadership vacuum in the White House if he falls seriously ill.

The US has never delayed an election before and the decision lies with Congress, but analysts say given the partisan divide, it seems unlikely that Republicans and Democrats would be able to come to an agreement on postponing the election date.

In South Korea, the administration of President Moon Jae-in, is probably preparing a Plan B for Seoul-Washington relations in case Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden wins the upcoming election, said Choi Kang, vice-president of the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul.

Trump’s illness would affect the presidential election and this would might influence the US approach to North Korea, said Choi.


“For the Moon administration, the Trump administration may look better when it comes to dealing with the North,” Choi said. Moon has been pushing for greater inter-Korean engagement but has faced political fallout at home after a recent incident where troops from the North found an unarmed man from the South floating in their waters and killed him.

Joseph Liow, an international affairs analyst and dean of the Nanyang Technological University’s College of Humanities, Arts and Social Science in Singapore, said Trump’s illness “makes an already uncertain future even more uncertain”.

Governments have consulted constitutional experts to ask what would happen to the election if Trump cannot recover in time, or if his condition worsens.

US President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump test positive for Covid-19

Mustafa Izzuddin, a senior international affairs analyst at management consultancy firm Solaris Strategies Singapore, said a delay in the November 3 poll was something Asian governments would frown upon, and that leaders in the region would want to know if the elections would go on smoothly.

“Asia prefers to know who’s in the White House so they can deal with the person accordingly,” he said.

Besides this, Trump’s diagnosis had no “drastic impact on Asia”, he added.

“Trump has been quite eccentric. So, in a very crude sense, I don’t think Asia would be bothered by what happens to him.”

Hikmahanto Juwana, an international relations professor at the University of Indonesia, said the US president’s ailment was likely to have less of a direct impact on Southeast Asian countries but could be a cause for concern in Singapore, which as a “close ally” of Washington, “needed to have certainty” about the US leadership.

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Hoo Chiew Ping, international and strategic relations expert from the National University of Malaysia said while people were still trying to understand the implications of the news, the most immediate questions had to do with governance in the US and the election.

These included whether Trump could still make decisions and run the country, or whether he would blame China even more, or if Vice-President Mike Pence would end up being the Republican candidate if Trump was not able to run.

“If he recovers well (which is most likely the case), would this mean the rhetoric that he’ll launch is likely to sway in his favour, or the reverse could happen?” he asked.

“There’s so much polarising sentiments being expressed online that they cloud our judgment about the likelihood of this outcome. There’s only so much we can tell by observing from afar.”

The West Australian’s cover featured a photograph of Trump along with the headline ‘Life’s a bleach’. Photo: Handout

Mustafa, the analyst based in Singapore, said Asian governments seemed eager to have Biden, the former vice-president during the Obama administration, in the White House, as Trump “has not really been keen on Asia”.

Analysts had earlier cast doubt on Trump’s commitment to the region and his absence last November from the East Asia Summit – a key regional forum attended by the 10
Asean countries and the bloc’s eight key trading partners – had been criticised.

Dylan Loh, assistant professor of public policy and global affairs at Nanyang Technological University, felt that the “best outcome” would be for Trump to make a speedy recovery.

“I think of greater concern would be the uncertainty that may arise if a leadership vacuum appears but that is of course premature given that Trump has stressed repeatedly that it is business as usual with him in charge,” he said.

The front page of The Japan Times. Photo: Handout

While Asian governments can only wait and see what happens, ordinary citizens have been searching for more details on the fallout of Trump’s illness, especially with more White House aides, members of the press pool and senators who attended an event last week, where Trump announced the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court testing positive.

According to Google Trends, searches for “Trump” peaked across the region on Friday, from Japan to Thailand and Vietnam to Malaysia, soon after the president announced that he and first lady Melania were down with the coronavirus. Hashtags including #TrumpHasCovid dominated Twitter.

The stunning news was also splashed on the front pages of Asian newspapers on Saturday morning.

The Straits Times reported that Trump’s illness has thrown the presidential polls into disarray. Photo: Handout

Singapore’s The Straits Times wrote that the news had thrown the looming US presidential elections “into disarray”, while Indonesia’s The Jakarta Post and The Japan Times carried sober headlines on Trump’s infection.

Taiwan’s edition of tabloid Apple Daily splashed a picture of Trump across the front page, saying the news had shocked the world.

In Australia, the Perth-based tabloid The West Australian’s cover featured a photograph of Trump along with the headline “Life’s a bleach”, with sub-headings pointing out that Trump had tested positive for the virus that he “repeatedly played down” and it was only five months ago that he had “suggested ingesting bleach as a miracle coronavirus cure”.

Additional reporting by John Power and Tashny Sukumaran


Kok Xinghui is a journalist based in Singapore, covering breaking news, politics, economy and health and social issues in the city state for the SCMP. She previously worked for The Straits Times and Today.

Dewey Sim is a reporter for the Asia Desk, covering Singapore politics, economy, diplomacy as well as Sino-Singapore ties. Dewey graduated from the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information. He began contributing to the Post in 2019, before joining the staff in August, 2019.

Trump ‘brought Covid-19 upon himself’, Japan business lobby chief says

Hiroaki Nakanishi said the US president did not take enough precautionary steps against the coronavirus

Trump has been treated at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center near Washington since Friday


Kyodo Published: 5 Oct, 2020

Supporters of Donald Trump rally outside Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, where the US president is being treated for Covid-19. Photo: AFP

US President Donald Trump, in hospital for treatment of Covid-19, did not take enough precautionary steps against the coronavirus and brought it upon himself, the head of Japan’s biggest business lobby Keidanren said on Monday.

“I believe he must have been careless. In a sense, he had it coming,” Hiroaki Nakanishi, chairman of the Japan Business Federation, said during an online press conference, noting that Trump was not seen wearing a face mask when attending large gatherings.
Last week, 

Trump and first lady Melania tested positive for the virus.

Trump, 74, has been treated at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center near Washington since Friday with only a month to go until the US presidential election in early November.

Before he contracted the virus that has claimed the lives of over 1 million people globally, he repeatedly played down its risks and ditched wearing face masks. In the US alone, over 200,000 people have died, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

With the spread of coronavirus infections yet to be contained, “We will have to live with the novel coronavirus for a while,” Nakanishi said online from the hospital where he has been receiving treatment for lymphoma.