Liberty University faces class-action lawsuit from students over ineffective pandemic response: report

Published April 14, 2020 By Matthew Chapman


On Tuesday, The Daily Beast reported that a student at Liberty University is bringing a class-action lawsuit against the school over its “glacially slow” response to the coronavirus pandemic.

“The unidentified student accuses the school and its president, Jerry Falwell Jr., a vocal Trump supporter, of downplaying the coronavirus threat and refusing to refund students for ‘room and board and other campus fees’ after classes were moved online,” reported Emma Tucker. “‘Liberty University is, in a very real sense, profiting from the COVID-19 pandemic — keeping its campus and campus services ‘open’ as a pretext to retain Plaintiff’s and the other Class members’ room, board and campus fees, despite no longer having to incur the full cost of providing those services, all the while putting students’ finances and health at risk,’ the lawsuit reads.”

The school has dismissed the lawsuit as meritless, and asserts that students were in fact offered $1,000 credits for vacating housing on its Lynchburg, Virginia campus.

Falwell more broadly has defended the decision to reopen his campus despite Virginia being under a state of emergency — a decision that has led to several students being infected. He has asserted that students need not be on the physical campus and can attend classes remotely, and that only about ten percent of the student body opted to remain in housing, most of whom were from abroad and didn’t want to return home to outbreaks in their own countries. Local Virginia officials, however, claim Falwell “misled” them when working out his plans to reopen.

After negative press coverage of his decision, Falwell announced that warrants were out on a pair of journalists from ProPublica and The New York Times for criminal trespass on the campus. It later turned out that the “warrant” was actually signed by a campus security officer, and there did not appear to be any signature from a judge or certification from a state court clerk.

Roger Stone floats theory that Bill Gates wants to ‘microchip’ people with ‘mandatory vaccinations’

Published April 14, 2020  By Sky Palma

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Speaking on Joe Piscopo’s radio program this Monday, longtime Donald Trump associate Roger Stone regurgitated a fringe conspiracy about Bill Gates’ reported involvement in the development of a vaccine for coronavirus, according to the New York Post.

“Whether Bill Gates played some role in the creation and spread of this virus is open for vigorous debate. I have conservative friends who say it’s ridiculous and others say absolutely,” Stone told Piscopo on his show The Answer.

“He and other globalists are using it for mandatory vaccinations and microchipping people so we know if they’ve been tested. Over my dead body. Mandatory vaccinations? No way, Jose!” Stone added

Conspiracy theories about Bill Gates’ alleged sinister motives in helping to create a vaccine for coronavirus have been circulating for weeks now. According to Media Matters, variations of Gates-inspired conspiracy theories in regards to a potential vaccine have even made their way onto Fox News.

White House is ‘heavily considering’ rumors about China creating COVID-19 intentionally for possible biological war

April 14, 2020 By Sarah K. Burris


Conspiracy theorists have tried to spin the idea that China intentionally created COVID-19 in a lab, the only purpose of which would be for a biological attack or war.

Defense One editor Kevin Baron reported that Defense Secretary Gen. Mark Milley revealed in a Q&A Tuesday that the DOD has looked into it.

“We’ve had a lot of intelligence take a hard look at that,” he said. “It’s inconclusive, although the weight of evidence leans towards natural. But, we don’t know for certain.”

New York Times White House reporter Maggie Haberman noted that the conspiracy theory is something that has been circulating among the Trump administration.

“Those rumors are being considered heavily within the White House, and in part, officials say, because there are gaps in the information from China,” Haberman tweeted.

Baron noted that Gen. Milley’s comments will likely “fuel a lifetime of additional conspiracy theories and speculation,” even though his tone was dismissive.

He said they’ve looked “Hard” and “the weight of evidence leans towards natural.”

See the full Twitter thread here.

We’re being conned by a White House intent on using the coronavirus crisis to unravel democracy

Published April 14, 2020 By Michael Winship, Common Dreams- Commentary

In our last episode, mail had finally arrived at my building in downtown Manhattan after many days without, all because of the devastating impact of COVID-19 at my local post office.

The delivery included a bombastic fundraising letter from the National Republican Congressional Committee under the name of Mike Pence excoriating Nancy Pelosi and the evils of socialism, a graceless exercise of the poison pen and maltreatment of the bulk postage rate.

In the week and a half since, postal carriers, fighting sickness and struggling to cope with understaffing brought on by the pandemic, have managed to deliver letters to my place on two other occasions.

The last batch included a couple of mass mail postcards from the White House and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announcing, in all caps, “PRESIDENT TRUMP’S CORONAVIRUS GUIDELINES FOR AMERICA.”

President Trump’s? Really? Somehow, I just don’t picture him in the Oval Office personally scribbling down these guidelines while Melania sat in the Roosevelt Room rereading The Federalist Papers.

As we know all too well, especially here in New York City, our insecure manchild-in-chief has to have his name on everything, whether it’s a casino or corona. Reports continue that among other self-aggrandizements, Trump had pondered putting his EKG-like signature on the bipartisan recovery bill’s stimulus checks, and historian Jon Meacham told The Washington Post on Friday, “Trump has cast himself in the role of [the] generous monarch who is saying, ‘I have given you this, dear subjects’ — and it’s a remarkably selfish and self-referential performance. It’s our money, for goodness sake. It’s not his money.”

As far as his postcard goes, there’s nothing wrong with the guidelines per se—wash your hands, stay at home, etc.—but like pretty much every move made by this administration during our crisis, it’s way past due. As The New York Times noted in an extensive investigation headlined, “He Could Have Seen What Was Coming,” published over the weekend, Trump “was slow to absorb the scale of the risk and to act accordingly, focusing instead on controlling the message, protecting gains in the economy and batting away warnings from senior officials…


“… Mr. Trump’s response was colored by his suspicion of and disdain for what he viewed as the “Deep State” — the very people in his government whose expertise and long experience might have guided him more quickly toward steps that would slow the virus, and likely save lives…

“The chaotic culture of the Trump White House contributed to the crisis. A lack of planning and a failure to execute, combined with the president’s focus on the news cycle and his preference for following his gut rather than the data cost time, and perhaps lives.”

Yet in this same moment, despite their deadly ineptitude when it comes to disease, Trump and administration officials seem intent on using our current crisis to their advantage—personal, political and ideological—depending on our understandable distraction to slip through their latest horrendous changes to government.

As time goes by, there’s no doubt that it will be revealed how many of Trump’s pals and GOP cronies took advantage of this national tragedy to make a fast buck—just look, for one, at the US senators who simultaneously told the public that all would be well while allegedly selling off their shares in businesses they knew were about to be gut punched by COVID-19 (and I include in their gang Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein).

Look, too, among many other examples, at the firing of inspectors general dedicated to investigating malfeasance in the government, Trump and Secretary of State George Pompeo’s de facto evisceration of the Peace Corps, under the guise of calling volunteers home from overseas to protect them from the pandemic, the summary deportation of 10,000 migrants at the southern border by citing emergency public health regs, or the suspension of environmental rules – leaving it to industries to self-regulate, using the virus as an excuse to let polluters run amok.

They’re trying to pull a multitude of fast ones and the United States Postal Service is yet another target. I wrote in last week’s piece, “The House version of the recent $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus package included $25 billion in emergency funding to make up for revenues lost in the pandemic.” It also canceled USPS debt and offered the post office loans of up to $10 billion, but those loans are all that survived what finally was passed into law.


Now it turns out, as per The Washington Post, that the reason for that was—surprise!—Donald Trump. If it helped bail out the post office with additional needed cash, he threatened to veto the entire coronavirus stimulus bill. The Post reported, “President Trump has blocked potential emergency funding for the agency that employs around 600,000 workers, repeating instead the false claim that higher rates for Internet shipping companies Amazon, FedEx and UPS would right the service’s budget.”
The competition from other delivery companies and the Internet is a real problem but what truly keeps the post office in debt, even with all that competition, is $72 billion in prepaid pension and healthcare costs for its employees, a system like no other in government or corporate America. This was foisted on the postal service by a lame duck Republican Congress in 2006. Many hoped it would force the USPS into privatization. Without this unnecessary burden, the postal service would almost break even.

We also know there’s nothing our president likes better than kicking someone when they’re down and this virus comes at a time when the post office’s own defenses are at an all-time low. The USPS now is projecting losses of $2 billion a month because of COVID-19. According to the Post, 500 postal workers have tested positive, another 462 are presumed positive, 6000 are in self-quarantine and 19 have died.

Mail volume is steadily declining because of the disease and could be down by as much as half by the end of June. With $19 billion in existing debt, by the end of September, the USPS could be “financially illiquid” and may lose $23 billion in the next year and a half.

Postmaster General Megan Brennan now is asking Congress for $25 billion to cover lost revenue from the pandemic, $25 billion for modernization and another loan of $25 billion. On Trump’s behalf, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin is pushing back, saying that in this next round of negotiations around recovery legislation, such a proposition would be a poison pill.

Trump’s public rationale for attacking the postal office—it’s failure to raise prices for delivery—is specious. In part, what this really is about, in addition to the desire to turn USPS over to corporate interests, is punishing Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO, and publisher of The Washington Post, the investigative reporting of which has been a perpetual thorn in Trump’s thin skin. Although increasingly, Amazon has developed delivery systems on its own, it’s still dependent on the postal service to get its goods in the hands of even the most faraway domestic customer.

But beyond this particular, childish lashing out at a perceived enemy like Bezos is something even scarier to our soul-deprived man in the Executive Mansion—free and fair elections. Eric Lutz at Vanity Fair writes that Trump’s “apparent plan to bleed the postal service dry comes as the agency is poised to play perhaps a bigger role than ever in November’s election, as Democrats and voting rights activists call for mail-in voting and other measures to ensure Americans can safely cast ballots in the midst of the pandemic.”

Trump says, “I think mail-in voting is terrible,” claiming that it’s rife with fraud, which, it almost goes without saying, is a lie. Not to mention hypocritical, as he himself has used mail-in ballots in last year’s midterms and this year’s Florida primary. What’s really behind his opposition is the knowledge, as he himself admitted, that the more Americans who are able to vote, the worse it is for him and the GOP. “If you ever agreed to it,” he declared, “you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”

As the coming weeks go by and the news of his drop in the polls grows more dire, Trump will become increasingly desperate. Watch as he tries to do his worst, suppressing the vote and working to prevent states that don’t already have it from adopting the mail-in ballot (or quashing any attempt to make mail-in voting a federal law).

This man has no qualms stomping on the Constitution—just witness his wild and bogus pronouncement Monday that his authority “is total.” So why would he hesitate for an instant to try eradicating the USPS, the only federal agency that’s actually called for in that Constitution? Even though the USPS consistently is ranked the most popular government agency and is essential to millions who depend on it not just for mail but prescriptions, money and other essentials, Trump doesn’t care or want to know. Any impediment to his supremacy has to go.

And lest we forget, he’s nuts.

“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift com.pletion of their appointed rounds”—the words engraved over the entrance of New York City’s former main post office. But a global pandemic might be able do what neither weather nor darkness can—especially if it’s aided and abetted by a cynical, venal president and a party committed to a death grip of power over patriotism and naked partisanship above liberty, country and democracy

Historian explains why Donald Trump’s COVID-19
response is remarkably similar to Herbert Hoover’s
failed crisis leadership

I HAVE MADE THIS SAME COMPARISON HERE

 April 14, 2020 By Robert Rupp  History News Network - Commentary


On April 9, the New York Times reported more than 6 million new unemployment claims for the previous week, and nearly 17 million over the previous three weeks. As this massive unemployment has followed the coronavirus crisis, a comparison between Presidents Donald Trump and Herbert Hoover becomes more apt than ever. For both presidents failed to project candor or show leadership during an unprecedented national crisis.

President Hoover during his first year in office confronted an economic collapse. Unemployment soared to a record 25% at time when most Americans did not have access to unemployment benefits let alone health care. But as the nation sank into the Great Depression of the 1930s, Hoover radiated confidence. He was fond of saying that prosperity was just around the corner.

Hoover allegedly explained his optimistic proclamations by saying that “A doctor does not tell his patient how sick he is.” His lack of openness prompted a pushback as opponents during his administration labelled the slums built outside major cities as “Hoovervilles,” and encouraged people to call an empty pocket turned inside out as a “Hoover Flag.”

Like Hoover, Trump leans toward overconfidence rather than openness. According to the Washington Post, he had sought to downplay the coronavirus threat 33 times in February and March. At the start of the pandemic Trump appeared to dismiss the threat by highlighting low numbers (only 5 deaths and 15 cases). In the following months he repeatedly ignored Winston Churchill’s observation that “ There is no worse mistake in public leadership than to hold out false hope soon to be swept away.” On April 3, President Trump did warn Americans that this week “there’s going to be a lot of death.” But then he talked about “the light at the end of the tunnel.”

Another characteristic shared by the two presidents is an avoidance of strong presidential action; each proved reluctant to use the full power of the federal government.

Any discussion of presidential leadership must first recognize that Hoover was not a laissez-faire bystander as the depression worsened. Over the objections of his Secretary of Treasury, Andrew Mellon, who fought any federal action, Hoover pushed for historic initiatives such a Reconstruction Finance Corporation, which provided loans to banks and other major businesses and a Home Loan Bank to help the construction sector. He also undertook “jawboning” to convince certain industries not to reduce wages and promoted a direct loan to state governments for spending on relief for the unemployed.

However, Hoover’s initiatives were constrained by his conservative political philosophy. He had strong ideological resistance to excessive federal intervention—a profound belief that such action would undermine initiative and responsibility. He expressed his strong views in his 1922 book American Individualism, which highlighted the danger of collectivism and a reliance too much on the federal government. In this regard he believed that assistance should be handled on a local, voluntary basis rather than on the federal level.

The American public would have to wait until President Franklin Roosevelt initiation of the New Deal and mobilization efforts during the World War II to witness dramatic model of full government intervention.

Like his overconfident pronouncements, Hoover’s principled resistance to extensive federal intervention did not serve him well as president and may have undermined his political future. Hoover was elected with 444 electoral votes winning all but 8 states in 1928. Four years later he received 59 electoral votes and carried just 6 states. Today no politician mentions him, except to compare their political opponent to him.

If history shows Hoover followed the wrong path for principled reasons, what will it say about Donald Trump, who has several tools that were not available to Hoover? Unlike Hoover, Trump could use such tools as War Production act and Defense Production act that date to World War II and the Korean War era, plus he has the precedent of the New Deal. All of these things happened after Hoover was president, and although available to Trump, he nonetheless is choosing not to use them as part of his action plan.

Armed with these tools Trump’s response has been confusing and impotent. While Hoover refused to initiate such action for ideological reasons, Trump has expressed no ideological justification. Trump apparently does not adhere to set of policies and ideology that would explain his reluctance to show strong presidential leadership.

Instead the man who just last year was making extraordinary claims about the unlimited power of a president has become the champion of federalism as he hands off to the states the decisions about the pandemic. He asserts that the federal government is only a backstop and that it is the responsibility of the state governors to set up the rules. The result is a patchwork of required action across the nation as fifty governors must fight each other for aid the President could implement as one nation.

As the United States faces the oncoming surge in victims, America does not have a uniform policy on stay-at-home-only suggestions and recommendations. States rights appear to trump federal action as we await future dissertations on the failure to allocate effectively ventilators, hospital beds and medical personnel during this pandemic emergency.

This lack of action and unified policy reminds one of the Articles of Confederation- that failed form of government replaced by the Constitution as our leaders realized the importance of strong federal government in times of crisis. As Alexander Hamilton wrote to James Duane on September 3, 1780, the danger was that the people “cannot long respect a Government which is too feeble to protect their interest.”

To flatten the curve of the coronavirus we need to be ahead in our planning and in our action. For delay is an ally of the coronavirus. As hockey star Wayne Gretzky said “skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it is.” As we await the pandemic’s impact on the nation, Presidents Hoover and Trump have provided negative role models.

Robert Rupp is a professor of history and political science at West Virginia Wesleyan College.

This article was originally published at History News Network

SEE
https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=HOOVERVILLE

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=HOOVER+DEPRESSION

Bruising global recession forecast as countries mull lifting virus lockdowns
April 14, 2020 By Agence France-Presse


The coronavirus is poised to spark a bruising global recession not seen in a century, the IMF warned Tuesday, as countries considered lifting sweeping lockdowns that have crippled economies and kept billions confined to their homes.

The deadly pandemic has already killed more than 120,000 people and infected close to two million around the world since it first emerged in China late last year.

 

AFP / Simon MALFATTO Global spread of coronavirus

It has upended lives from New York to New Delhi to Naples as governments imposed unprecedented lockdown measures to contain the virus’s devastating march across the globe, sparking fears of tipping the world economy into a slump not seen since the Great Depression.

But with deaths and infections possibly starting to plateau in some of the hardest-hit countries, debate is mounting about when — and how — to lift lockdown measures that have kept half of humanity hemmed into their homes for weeks on end.
Some shops in Austria reopened Tuesday, a day after Spain allowed construction and factory workers to return to their jobs.
 

AFP / Arun SANKAR 

India exteded national lockdown orders for its 1.3 billion people until the beginning of May

In the US, President Donald Trump said numbers were levelling off as the governor of hardest-hit New York state looked ahead to a return to normalcy.

But the picture was patchy across the globe.

France extended its nationwide stay-at-home orders for another month, and while Italy said some bookshops and launderettes could reopen Tuesday, many stayed closed with stringent lockdown orders still in place.

France extended its nationwide lockdown orders for another month, and while Italy allowed some bookshops and launderettes to reopen Tuesday, many nevertheless stayed closed with stringent stay-at-home orders kept in place for most of the country’s 60 million citizens.

“People are going to lose jobs, businesses are going to shut down, unemployment is going to rise and hungry people are going to die,” a businessman, Manoj, told AFP on the deserted streets of New Delhi.

– ‘The Great Lockdown’ –

Dire economic warnings poured in from the International Monetary Fund Tuesday, which predicted the worst global downturn in a century.

It forecast a three-percent cut world in output this year and a 7.5-percent dive for the eurozone economy.

The US economy, the world’s biggest, is expected to contract by 5.9 percent.
 

AFP / Gal ROMA

 COVID-19: growth forecasts for most affected countries


“Much worse growth outcomes are possible and maybe even likely,” according to the IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook.




“If the pandemic and containment measures last longer, emerging and developing economies are even more severely hit,” it warned, calling the global downturn “The Great Lockdown”.

But if the virus is contained and economies can begin operating again, 2021 should see a rebound of 5.8 percent, it added.

France on Tuesday said its economy was expected to shrink by eight percent, worse than previous projections, while in Britain the Office for Budget Responsibility fiscal watchdog said GDP could plummet by 13 percent.

– ‘Afraid of virus’ –




But some countries showed signs of setting off the long road back to normalcy.

Vienna’s popular Favoriten district drew mask-clad shoppers after the government allowed some small shops as well as hardware and gardening stores to reopen across the country.
AFP / Hector RETAMAL More than 120,000 people have died around the world from the virus which first emerged in Wuhan China late last year

Social distancing rules remained in place, however: queues were staggered and one tobacco shop only served customers on the street.

“(I’m) afraid of the virus”, said Fatih Altun, who runs a laptop repair shop.

He was relieved to be able to get back to work after losing some 6,000 euros ($6,600) since closing his business last month.

“I had to fire my only employee,” he said.

Austria has been spared the worst of the virus with some 14,000 cases and over 300 deaths.

Badly affected Spain on Monday allowed construction and factory employees back to work, and police handed out face masks in Madrid metro stations.

The country’s daily death toll saw a slight rise Tuesday, though new infections dropped to the lowest level since Spain imposed its nationwide lockdown last month.

 

AFP / Johannes EISELE 

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said the “worst is over” in his state

Italy’s death toll is now above 20,000 — second worst after the US — but deaths and infections have eased off.

And Denmark planned to open some of its schools on Wednesday after a month-long shutdown.

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned Monday that control measures “must be lifted slowly”, noting that the coronavirus was 10 times deadlier than the 2009-10 swine flu outbreak.

– ‘Worst is over’ –

In Washington, Trump said US numbers could be steadying as 1,509 new daily deaths were reported — almost identical to the previous day.

AFP / Johannes EISELE

In New York, where the virus has killed more than 10,000 people — almost half of the US total — and seen unclaimed victims buried in unmarked mass graves, Governor Andrew Cuomo said the nightmare might be coming to an end.

“The worst is over if we continue to be smart going forward. I believe we can now start on the path to normalcy,” Cuomo told reporters.

But he said restrictions would only be eased gradually. “It’s not going to be, we flip the switch, and everybody comes out of their house, gets in their car, waves and hugs each other, and the economy will start.”

In France, one of Europe’s worst-hit countries, President Emmanuel Macron said in a televised address Monday night the epidemic there was “beginning to steady… (and) hope is returning”.
 

AFP / Simon MALFATTO 

Do lockdowns affect the number of coronavirus deaths?


But a strict lockdown in force since March 17 would continue until May 11 — after which schools and businesses could gradually reopen at a “progressive” rate.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari told his citizens they must “endure a little longer” as he also extended a lockdown in key cities saying: “We must not lose the gains achieved thus far.”

And in Britain, where Prime Minister Boris Johnson is recovering after a week in hospital with the virus, officials warned the peak was still to come and the lockdown there was likely to continue.

There were cautionary tales that the virus is not easily defeated.

In China, where the outbreak first reared its head and the government says it has largely curbed the spread of the virus, officials announced scores of new imported infections.

burs-jv/jj

POST FORDISM

GM, Ventec say they started "mass production" of ventilators

Published: April 14, 2020

General Motors Co. GM, -1.02% said Tuesday it has begun "mass production" of ventilators alongside Ventec Life Systems under a 30,000-unit contract with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. "The effort involved sourcing hundreds of parts and assemblies from suppliers; the design of a new manufacturing process; the transformation of GM's Kokomo factory; the ongoing hiring of more than 1,000 manufacturing team members; and the implementation of extensive health and safety protocols in the workplace," GM said. More than 600 ventilators will be shipped this month, almost half the order will be filled by the end of June and the full order will be completed by the end of August, the company said. "GM has the capacity to build more ventilators after August if needed," it said.

Here’s what Pope Francis said about the global economy that drew a ‘wow’ from a former presidential candidate

UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME UBI

Published: April 13, 2020 By Shawn Langlois MARKETWATCH

Pope Francis. CTV via Reuters

‘This may be the time to consider a universal basic wage which would acknowledge and dignify the noble, essential tasks you carry out. It would ensure and concretely achieve the ideal, at once so human and so Christian, of no worker without rights.’

That’s Pope Francis showing support for an idea many countries are at least temporarily experimenting with amid the economic disruption sparked by the coronavirus pandemic.

“I know that you have been excluded from the benefits of globalization. ... The ills that afflict everyone hit you twice as hard,” Pope Francis wrote in a letter. “Street vendors, recyclers, carnies, small farmers, construction workers, dressmakers, the different kinds of caregivers: you who are informal, working on your own or in the grassroots economy, you have no steady income to get you through this hard time... and the lockdowns are becoming unbearable.”

The letter drew praise on Twitter TWTR, +3.14% from Andrew Yang, who spent much of his failed campaign for the presidency pushing universal basic income:


Andrew Yang
✔@AndrewYang

Wow. Pope Francis today: “This may be the time to consider a universal basic wage.” Game-changing. .@pontifex https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2020/04/12/pope-just-proposed-universal-basic-income-united-states-ready-it …

The pope just proposed a universal basic income. Is the United States ready for it?

“This may be the time,” he said, “to consider a universal basic wage.” This points unmistakably to what is usually known as universal basic income—a regular, substantial cash payment to people just...americamagazine.org
9:30 AM - Apr 12, 2020

Yang ran on the idea echoed in the letter that free cash for everyone would go a long way toward helping to solve economic inequality by providing a financial safety net for all, including those, like stay-at-home moms and caregivers, who aren’t getting adequately compensated.

Beyond the call for considering a universal basic income, the pope also made the case for a lasting change in the global culture in a postpandemic world.

“Our civilization — so competitive, so individualistic, with its frenetic rhythms of production and consumption, its extravagant luxuries, its disproportionate profits for just a few — needs to downshift, take stock, and renew itself,” he wrote.

America magazine, a publication of the Jesuit order, from which the Argentinian Jorge Bergoglio is the first pontiff, traced the roots of the pope’s call to consider UBI to an 1891 encyclical in which Pope Leo XIII sought to address the Gilded Age’s widening economic inequality.

Pope Francis on Sunday also delivered a speech for evening mass held at a mostly empty St. Peter’s Basilica, with Italy still on lockdown due to the coronavirus, which has now infected more than 1.8 million people around the world, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Why this screenshot of CNBC’s ‘Mad Money’ host Jim Cramer is ‘everything that is wrong with America’

Published: April 14, 2020 By Shawn Langlois MARKETWATCH 

In many ways, last week was one of the darkest stretches in American history.

The coronavirus death toll in the U.S. — now topping 23,000 — skyrocketed as families continued to huddle in their homes uncertain of what’s next, while an unthinkable number of more than 16 million people have now filed for unemployment amid an economy grappling with the shutdown.

Yet, somehow, the stock market has managed to push higher. In other words, at least those fortunate enough to own stocks had something to smile about. Democratic strategist Justin Horwitz summed up the disconnect with this tweet that went viral across Twitter TWTR, +3.71% :

As you can see, that’s CNBC’s Jim Cramer talking about the rally in the market while the chyron points out the grim reality of the historic job losses.

One commenter captured much of the response on social media by saying, “The Dow is not the economy. It is a giant government sanctioned Ponzi scheme for the wealthy.”

Another pointed to the fact that, according to Federal Reserve data, 84% of stocks owned by U.S. households are held by the wealthiest 10% of Americans — essentially Wall Street vs. Main Street.

Cramer later followed up with this tweet in which he said he’ll offer an explainer:

There’s some history to back the rally. In an analysis published Thursday, investor Ned Davis pointed out that stocks do better than average when unemployment spikes. Davis’s research shows that a jobless rate over 6% correlates with the market rising 13.7% per annum.

“How can this be?” Davis wrote. “It defies logic. My explanation would be that this news is widely followed, and the market tends to look ahead. So it is probably priced in.”

Of course, the Federal Reserve has a lot to do with that, as well.

“When you remove near term bankruptcy risk from every publicly held company regardless of credit rating or near-term financial condition, asset prices should rise,” DataTrek’s Nicholas Colas wrote in a note published on Friday. “Markets know that no matter how bad cash flow might be there is a Fed loan backstop waiting in the wings if needed.”

Read:16 million people just got laid off but U.S. stocks had their best week in 45 years

The stock market was rallying in a big way on Tuesday, with the Dow DJIA, 2.30% up more than 600 points. The S&P SPX, 3.02% and Nasdaq COMP, 3.98% were also firmly higher.

PICKING WINNERS & LOSERS  
 Trump’s Big Oil Deal Hinges on Weakest of Shale Going Bust

Stephen Cunningham Bloomberg April 13, 2020


(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump said the “big Oil Deal” he brokered will save hundreds of thousands of American jobs. But the agreement hinges on a shale bust that could spell the end for some explorers drowning in debt, bringing a wave of bankruptcies and job losses.

On Sunday, the OPEC+ group agreed to pare production by 9.7 million barrels a day, ending a devastating price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia. Trump, meanwhile, is counting on market forces to shave some 2 million barrels a day of overall U.S. output by the end of the year.

U.S.-focused oil producers have already slashed more than $27 billion from drilling budgets this year and are starting to shut in production. And almost 40% of oil and natural gas producers face insolvency within the year if crude prices remain near $30 a barrel, according to a survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

“Trump’s strategy seems to rely on the free market forcing production down and implicit in that is some companies going under,” said Dan Eberhart, a Trump donor and chief executive of drilling services company Canary Drilling Services.

Explorers idled 10% of the U.S. oil-drilling fleet, with more than half of the losses in the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico, the heart of America’s shale industry, while Concho Resources Inc. said that it and other producers are shutting in output. Oil producer Whiting Petroleum Corp. and service provider Hornbeck Offshore Services Inc. headed for bankruptcy.

The deal, reached after days of urgent negotiations, ended a standoff between Saudi Arabia and Russia and belatedly tackled a plunge in demand caused by the coronavirus outbreak. The lockdowns enacted across much of the world to slow its spread have caused consumption to crater by as much as 35 million barrels a day.

After the deal, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analysts called the deal “too little, too late”, and said they expect inland U.S. crude prices to decline further in coming weeks as storage fills up. Prices fell below $10 a barrel in some areas of the U.S. during March due to the collapse in demand, with at least one grade bid at negative prices.

Oil futures in New York were up 3.2% to $23.48 a barrel Monday, but well off their initial surge following the deal.

Scott Sheffield, chief executive officer of shale driller Pioneer Natural Resources Co., said he’ll testify at a meeting of Texas regulators on Tuesday to argue for a 20% cut to the state’s oil production in May. The OPEC+ deal to lower output is “not enough” and more is needed from non-OPEC nations including the U.S. to stabilize crude prices, Sheffield said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. Texas should tie cuts to more reductions from G-20 nations, he said.

Oil giants Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp., along with most of the other prominent Texas shale explorers, oppose mandated cuts.

Meanwhile, refiners, running out of places to store fuel they can’t sell, are cutting back production and turning away crude they don’t need, adding to pressure on smaller producers.

Scaling Back

Trump’s strategy in pressing the Saudis and Russians to agree to sweeping cuts hinged on his oft-repeated claim that U.S. drillers were already scaling back of their own accord in response to the downturn. Some senators from oil-producing states previously raised the prospect of cutting off aid to Saudi Arabia or slapping tariffs on its crude if the kingdom didn’t pare output.

Trump has pointed out that the oil could be pumped later. “Well, there’s no real cost because we’re agreeing to produce a little bit less,” he said at a press conference Friday. “It’s staying in the ground. You have it. You have it for another day.”

Two of the biggest industry trade groups, which opposed the idea of tariffs, expressed support for the deal. The American Petroleum Institute welcomed the “announcement of an agreement by other producing nations to follow the lead of the global marketplace – and U.S. producers – to reduce supply to align with lower energy demand as result of the pandemic.” The American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers was pleased that a deal was reached that “helps U.S. producers and avoids imposing added costs on U.S. refiners.”

With demand destruction outstripping the pledged cuts by a long way, the agreement isn’t so much about balancing markets so much as buying time to prevent stockpiles from overflowing, said Kevin Book, managing director at ClearView Energy Partners LLC in Washington.


Russia hails oil deal it says will save millions of U.S.jobs

IF RUSSIA LIKES IT YOU KNOW ITS BAD FOR AMERICA



FILE PHOTO: Kirill Dmitriev, chief executive of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, attends a session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum
By Katya Golubkova and Olesya Astakhova Reuters April 13, 2020

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The global oil production deal clinched at the weekend will help establish a price floor and save millions of jobs in the United States, senior Russian officials said on Monday.

Having been in a stand-off with western nations - most notably the United States - from 2014 on everything from Crimea's annexation from Ukraine to allegations of election meddling, Moscow has sought to rebuild ties since the coronavirus outbreak.

It sent medical support to Italy and the United States to fight the pandemic and has supported the historic oil supply pact, which could have negative implications for its own economy.

The planned supply cuts represent a complete reversal by Russia and Saudi Arabia, which had both threatened to ramp up output in a battle for market share after the previous deal between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and other producers fell apart in early March.

Combined with G20 input, the leaders of Russia, the United States and Saudi Arabia engaged in a series of phone calls last week to help to iron out the deal that could remove as much as 20 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil from the market - roughly a quarter of all supplies.

"(Russia's) President (Vladimir) Putin had as many calls with (U.S.) President (Donald) Trump last week as he had for the whole of last year," Kirill Dmitriev, head of Russia's sovereign wealth fund RDIF, told CNBC on Monday.

Trump has said he helped to broker the deal. The United States also agreed to make extra cuts on behalf of Mexico, helping to save the accord after four days of talks.

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak, speaking to Russian Rossiya-1 TV station, also praised Putin, saying that total output cuts were seen at between 15 and 20 million bpd, including by the United States, Norway and Canada.

He also said he had met heads of domestic oil producers, who had supported the deal.

'WORKING TOGETHER'

Dmitriev, one of Moscow's top negotiators, and whose fund shared the cost of Russia's medical help for Washington, believes that the oil deal would help to save more than 2 million U.S. jobs, he told CNBC.

"This is an example of us working together for the best of our nations," Dmitriev said.

Without the deal, oil prices might have collapsed to less than $10 a barrel from more than $30 now, he added.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday described the deal as important and that it would help to keep oil prices from collapsing.

Russian oil output has already started to decline, falling to 11.24 million bpd this month, from 11.29 million bpd in March, an oil industry source said.

Moscow's obligations under the deal are to cut its output to 8.5 million bpd from May to June, bringing it to the lowest level since 2003.

The resulting economic impact could be as much as 1.2 percentage points from Russia's gross domestic product, said Kirill Tremasov, head of investment research at Loko-Invest.

Producers will slowly relax curbs after June, though production reductions will remain in place until April 2022 under the terms of the deal.

(Additional reporting by Dmitry Zhdannikov in London; Darya Korsunskaya, Elena Fabrichnaya, Tom Balmforth, Maxim Rodionov, Maria Kiselyova and Vladimir Soldatkin in Moscow; Writing by Katya Golubkova; Editing by David Goodman and Catherine Evans)

Trump's oil-production pact may do little to help U.S. producers or drivers amid coronavirus

Don Lee LA Times April 13, 2020

An oil rig and pump jack work in Midland, Texas, the nation's top oil-producing state. (Jacob Ford / Odessa American)

The agreement announced Sunday by Russia, Saudi Arabia and other oil-producing countries to cut back output is unlikely to raise fuel prices much for American consumers in the weeks and months ahead.

That should be good news for the American economy and for President Trump. But these are not normal times.

The coronavirus pandemic has created a painful bind for Trump and for the United States: Plunging oil prices, coupled with a huge glut in global oil inventories, are savaging the petroleum industry at a time when the U.S. has become the world’s largest oil producer.

Long before he was elected president and continuing after he entered the White House, Trump lambasted attempts by OPEC, the oil cartel, to prop up petroleum prices by limiting production.

That’s been a politically rewarding stance because lower oil prices are the equivalent of a tax cut for drivers, homeowners and many businesses: They put more spending money in people’s pockets and generate goodwill toward leaders who take the credit.

That has generally been true even if the decline hurt the U.S. oil industry.

But not so in the age of COVID-19. State and local governments have ordered lockdowns, stay-home orders and social distancing policies that experts say are necessary to reduce the pandemic’s toll.

“This is a fairly new situation,” said Antoine Rostand, president of Kayrros, an energy research and consulting firm. “Those who could enjoy low prices are stuck at home,” he said, and U.S. oil producers are suffering the downside of depressed prices.

Gasoline prices are certainly falling. The national average for regular gas dropped to $1.92 per gallon in the week ending April 6, below $2 for the first time in more than four years and down 50 cents from just a month earlier. It's dropped a similar amount in California to $2.87 a gallon.

Experts see fuel prices sliding further, possibly to record lows on an inflation-adjusted basis.

The new agreement to lower oil production is unlikely to have much effect at a time when the world is already awash in surplus oil and most major economies, including the U.S., are plunging into recession.

Analysts say the cutback, unprecedented as it was, is too little and too late.

The agreement by 23 oil-producing countries pledges to remove 9.7 million barrels of oil a day from world markets. But amid the pandemic, global demand for oil has fallen by at least 20 million barrels, some say as much as 30 million, a day.

Moreover, it’s not enough to erase the existing glut in oil inventories around the world anytime soon.

“Every available pipeline and storage terminal is about to be completely full, so you have to stop production or you've got to pay someone to take your production away,” said Bobby Tudor, chairman of Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co., an investment banking firm based in Houston, the nation’s oil capital.

“If 16% of oil demand is people just driving to and from work globally, how quickly does that come back?” he asked. “How quickly will we all be willing to get back on an airplane?”

For Trump, the new reality has meant flip-flopping on his long-standing aversion to deals to reduce oil output.

Before the 2018 midterm elections, when the price of gasoline was rising to nearly $3 per gallon, Trump jawboned Saudi Arabia to boost its production to get prices down.

As recently as March 9, days before the spreading coronavirus drove Trump to embrace social distancing restrictions, he cheered a silver lining in the one-two punch of the pandemic and the Russia-Saudi price war.

“Good for the consumer, gasoline prices coming down,” the president tweeted.

But just two weeks later Trump tweeted that “Our great Oil & Gas industry” is under siege. And since then the president has reached out to Russia while U.S. lawmakers have pressured Saudi Arabia in no uncertain terms to halt their disastrous battle for market share.

Trump's about-face comes as U.S. producers are indeed under siege.

Texas, North Dakota, Oklahoma, New Mexico and other oil-producing states are feeling the first waves of shutdowns and company bankruptcies. That is further aggravating the overall plunge in employment and economic activity nationwide.

Tudor said he is already seeing significant layoffs at Houston’s oil firms and spillover to ancillary businesses.

“A collapse to this industry would be a really bad thing ultimately, not just for Houston but for the broader economy in the country,” he said.

In the last month, there’s been a 50% reduction of crews working in America’s shale oil basins, according to an analysis of satellite images and other calculations by Kayrros.

“That’s really unprecedented,” said Kayrros’ Rostand. “It really reflects the reality on the ground: that there’s a very dramatic imbalance between supply and demand.”

Things have gotten so worrisome in Texas, by far the nation's leading oil producer, that state authorities are considering imposing production caps for the first time in a century.

In the face of falling demand and the existing supply glut, the new cutback agreement is not nearly large enough to reverse the situation anytime soon.

At the end of 2015, the world had 593 million barrels of surplus oil inventory. And with the global economy growing about 3.5%, it still took two years to work off the supplies, said Amy Myers Jaffe, senior fellow for energy and the environment at the Council on Foreign Relations.

The cutback deal Sunday may avert what Jaffe called a worst-case scenario in which oil stockpiles would fill up well above 2015 levels at a time when the world economy is in recession.

Still, she said, “Oil prices are bound to stay low.”

Certainly, the mismatch between supply and demand was exacerbated by the price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia, two of the biggest oil producers. They sought to gobble up a larger share of the oil market by producing more and swallowing the resulting price declines.

The combination of the coronavirus and the Saudi-Russia feud saw the U.S. benchmark price of crude tumble from more than $61 a barrel at the start of the year to a low of $19.27 on March 30. Despite the agreement, it was down 1.5% on Monday to $22.41 a barrel.

That price is barely half of the break-even level for many producers in the United States, and so companies have begun to reduce the flow.

Giant oil firms, such as Chevron and Exxon, are in relatively good financial shape to weather the downturn. In addition to size, those producing shale oil will be better off. Shale beds can be turned off and on with less risk of damage compared with conventional wells.

A lot of smaller and independent drillers, however, could fold or be eaten up by larger firms. And this time, investors won’t be running back to the oil industry to supply capital as in the past. Not only have they been repeatedly burned by disappointing performance, now they see a very uncertain outlook.

As both the biggest producer and the biggest user of oil, accounting for about 20% of the 100 million barrels a day consumed worldwide, the U.S. is taking hits on both sides of the equation.

Daniel Yergin, the energy expert who is vice chairman of IHS Markit, a research and consulting firm, wrote recently that U.S. production could drop by almost 3 million barrels per day by year's end. That could knock the U.S. below the Saudis and Russians as the top producer. It could also mean rising oil imports.

“The economic costs will be high, given the importance of the shale revolution to the overall U.S. economy — accounting altogether, according to analysis by IHS Markit, for about 2.5 million jobs,” Yergin said in an article in Foreign Affairs.