American Politics

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2775139]First, outside of a few countries like Argentina, Turkey, Venezuela and Zimbabwe, there is no hyper-inflation. I'd argue it's not necessarily a world wide problem. YoY inflation is sub 5% in east Asia (1.6% in China) and not way out of line with historical levels in a number of developing countries, like India and Brazil.

The USA sticks out as the only major economy suffering from high inflation in 2021, as you can see from the chart in my link. And, like the most prominent of economists affiliated with the Democratic Party, Larry Summers, I attribute a lot of that to Biden's American Rescue Plan.

Inflation in Europe is largely a result of

(a) the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I question whether this would have happened if Trump had been re-elected. I would not fault Biden though. The result would have been the same if most of the other establishment Democrats and Republicans were president instead.

(b) foolish energy policies on the part of European countries, which largely mirror what Democrats, progressives in particular, have wished for. Germany was doing away with its nuclear plants. Coal fired power plants were scrapped. Huge investment went into wind and solar, which cannot supply baseload capacity, when the wind doesn't blow or the sun doesn't shine. Europe didn't diversify its energy sources, by for example adding more LNG regassification facilities. (Compare to the Biden administration's shut down of the Keystone pipeline expansion, and the embargo on Venezuelan crude imports by Democrat wannabe Donald Trump.) Again I don't fault Biden. Biden is not the president of Europe.

As to the supply chain disruptions, causes included

(c) lockdowns in China to control COVID. These were similar to lockdowns favored by a number of Democratic state and local politicians to control COVID in the USA. Based on your criticisms of the "Trump Pandemic", I guess you favored them as well. I don't know how else the USA could have achieved results similar to China, Taiwan, New Zealand, etc. , without a huge, long nationwide lockdown. I don't fault Biden however, as Biden is not the president of China.

(e) The Trump and Biden Tariffs on China ripped apart supply chains.

(f) logistical snafus in the USA. The ports in California were perhaps the biggest contributor. Maybe you can blame local and state Democratic politicians, but not Biden. Biden's not dictator of California.

(g) not enough labor. Young to early-middle-aged male adults, a majority of whom were Democrats and Millenials, decided to sit on their asses in Mom's and Dad's house instead of returning to the labor force. To his credit, Biden has not been sitting on his ass. He's much more active than your average 80 year old. Maybe some of this is attributable to poorly targeted government programs, like in the American Rescue Plan, which may have discouraged work.

As to the issue at hand, the huge overstimulation of the USA Economy, there are mitigating circumstances, as to Biden's involvement.

(h) Donald Trump (Democrat implant in the Republican Party), Nancy Pelosi and many Congressmen were complicit in the huge helicopter drops of money into the USA Economy that resulted in $2. 5 trillion in excess savings by mid 2021. So the increase in demand for goods and services resulted not just from the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, but earlier legislation as well. Every Democrat in Congress supported the American Rescue Plan. It wasn't just Joe Biden's fault.

(i) The Fed should have been increasing interest rates, starting from when the American Rescue Plan ignited inflation. It didn't. Admittedly the Fed Board of Governors is composed mostly of members appointed or re-appointed by Biden, but I think regardless, it would have been late to the game.[/QUOTE]Very few if any other countries jumped into effective Trump's Pandemic vaccination and economic recovery measures as quickly in early 2021 as the USA did.

Thanks, Joe, Nancy, Chuck, the Dems and everyone who voted for them.

You want Chinese-style lingering shit economic conditions, crap jobs creation and YoY 1. 6% inflation in America while other countries' economies and recoveries from that 2-year Trump's Pandemic economic coma are roaring ahead at historic rates and capturing every available future economic opportunity in sight? No problem; help Repubs get elected so they can propose and achieve their usual crap economic results agenda, wipe out millions of jobs and plunge the country into another Great Repub Recession / Depression.

They've got the market cornered on keeping inflation very, very low in America that way.

BTW, other than you, I don't know anyone who gives a shit about what Larry Summers thinks. Not even Democrats I know. Many Dems thought Summers was almost as much of a load and drag on what could have been an even faster and better recovery from GW Bush's Great Repub Crash and Recession under Obama as the Repubs in Congress. Summers' involvement in domestic economic issues under Clinton didn't even happen until after the most important and effective economic legislation had already been passed by Clinton and his Dem Congress.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2774843]The excess deaths are higher than actual deaths attributed to COVID. They're not that far apart here in the USA, around 1.3 million excess deaths since the start of COVID compared to the 1.1 million official count. And yes, you can make the argument that, for example, more people died from heart disease in 2020 because they couldn't get into hospitals for routine treatment. Anyway, the CDC maintains that COVID was the third leading cause of death in 2020 and 2021, and will be again in 2022, and I think they're right.

The purported 1 in 7200 number was from Omicron. Given that about one out of every 1100 people in the USA have died from Omicron (300,000 / 330,000,000), and given the vaccine and boosters were about 80% effective in preventing hospitalizations and deaths from Omicron, and given that 64% of the population had been fully vaccinated (and 75% had received at least one shot) at the peak of the Omicron wave, the 1 in 7200 number just doesn't make sense. Based on a back of the envelope calculation based on the preceding, every 820 full vaccinations would have saved one life since Omicron became the predominant variant. And yes, as you've implied, you'll save a lot more lives putting those shots into the arms of the elderly and the high risk than the young and healthy.[/QUOTE]Tiny, those numbers are way off.

[URL]https://www.news-medical.net/news/20220621/Only-2025-of-Americans-have-effective-protection-against-Omicron-infection.aspx[/URL]

The study results demonstrated that the estimated proportion of the US population with a SARS-CoV-2 vaccination or infection history as of December 1, 2021, was 88.2%. Moreover, effective immunity toward the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron strain infection on December 1, 2021, was 21.8% nationwide.

[URL]https://time.com/6215580/original-vaccines-effectiveness-against-omicron/[/URL]

Researchers in Ontario analyzed data from more than 134,000 people, including those who tested positive for Delta and Omicron infections during December 2021. They found that people who were fully vaccinated (with two doses of an mRNA vaccine, from either Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech) experienced a decline in vaccine effectiveness against both Delta and Omicron infections, but the drop was greater against Omicron than against Delta. Among the vaccinated, the shots' effectiveness declined from 36% up to two months after the second dose of the primary series, to 1% up to four months later (or six months after the second dose).

[URL]https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/omicron-boosters-probably-aren-t-very-effective-against-mild-covid-illness-but-will-likely-prevent-hospitalizations-experts-say/ar-AA14yLok[/URL]

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in a real-world study published this week, found the boosters are less than 50% effective against mild illness across almost all adult age groups when compared to people who are unvaccinated.

And Tiny, you have to get 50% effectiveness to have a vaccine approved, and this is not against anything other than mild illness. That the vaccines are being mandated at this point is absurd, and those death numbers are crazy. I have seen one really sick person with omicron versus hundreds with the other strains. One in three Covid deaths due to omicron then is nuts.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2774843]Wouldn't the new bivalent vaccine, and newer (future versions) overcome this to an extent, like for the flu vaccine?[/QUOTE]I have not seen any vaccine work against omicron and what is worse is the double blind placebo controlled studies for safety are not being done.

And Paxlovid is a shit drug too. [URL]https://time.com/6198667/paxlovid-who-should-take-covid-19/[/URL].

When you say it does not help the vaccinated and people under 65 (one study showed it hurt younger people), you are stretching it. To me, it is like what is next? People with jock itch but only those with warts on their left foot? And seeing as how the vaccines do not work against omicron, why should they affect Paxlovid? Still, this shit drug is slated to make billions just like the vaccines that do not work against omicron either.

Our entire initial response was based on what China did and how it "worked". Well, we know now it did not work. That form of the virus just burned itself out after three months like it always does and a new strain came back.

And it is hilarious to read how China is in such trouble because they have no immunity as if we do. If our immunity rate was 20% a year ago, it certainly is lower now. China is going to be fine because their version of Covid is just not that bad. They just needed to quit freaking out about Covid.

Governments fucking around with viruses caused this pandemic, and the scary part is how cheap and easy it is to do. I showed a study where researchers made a Covid strain that was 80% lethal.

This stuff needs to be buttoned up as tight as nuclear power, and people should be asking how government let this happen and trusting them way less than they do.

Instead we have these Democratic who swear all these government interventions worked when they did not do shit. What does work and what likely will always work is what TK advocated, healthy living.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2775197]Very few if any other countries jumped into effective Trump's Pandemic vaccination and economic recovery measures as quickly in early 2021 as the USA did.

Thanks, Joe, Nancy, Chuck, the Dems and everyone who voted for them.[/QUOTE]LOL. More people died with Biden as president than Trump with the virus. Meanwhile, you douches still keep thinking you can control the climate. Hey, Tooms, so tell me how is it that this record cold snap is the fault of Republicans and not Democrats?

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2775336]LOL. More people died with Biden as president than Trump with the virus. Meanwhile, you douches still keep thinking you can control the climate. Hey, Tooms, so tell me how is it that this record cold snap is the fault of Republicans and not Democrats?[/QUOTE]LOL. Yeah, mostly sucker Repubs who fell for Trump's near year long BS that "It's disappearing. It will go away without a vaccine"!

Oh well. Biden tried to save their lives anyway.

[B]Record-Breaking Heatwaves Around the World In 2022[/B]

[URL]https://www.careourearth.com/record-breaking-heatwaves-around-the-world-in-2022/[/URL]

[QUOTE=Elvis 2008;2775336]LOL. More people died with Biden as president than Trump with the virus. [/QUOTE]

Indeed!

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2775197]Very few if any other countries jumped into effective Trump's Pandemic vaccination and economic recovery measures as quickly in early 2021 as the USA did.[/QUOTE]You're too generous. It wasn't only the Trump Administration and its Operation Warp Speed that paved the way to vaccinate most Americans and recover from the pandemic. Pfizer, BioNTech, and Moderna were each just as or more important.

I read the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan as a % of GDP was much larger than any stimulus plan passed by any other country in 2021, which is largely or mostly why inflation hit us before other countries. And that was just part of the $5 trillion in additional spending authorized by a Democratic President, House and Senate during the two years they controlled government.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2775197]Thanks, Joe, Nancy, Chuck, the Dems and everyone who voted for them.[/QUOTE]I would thank them too if I were you! If my income were from renting out apartments and houses, like yours, I'd be over the moon! In the 12 months after the American Rescue Plan was passed and turbocharged inflation (March, 2021 to March, 2022) , asking rental rates were up 17%.

[URL]https://www.redfin.com/news/redfin-rental-report-may-2022/[/URL]

Average hourly earnings however were only up 5.6%.

[URL]https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CES0500000003[/URL]

Yes, landlords like you benefitted mightily. Working men and women who were stretching harder and harder to pay their rents did not.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2775197]You want Chinese-style lingering shit economic conditions, crap jobs creation and YoY 1.6% inflation in America[/QUOTE]I'm confused. I thought that was what you wanted. The only way to prevent your so called "Trump Pandemic" in the USA would have been to institute lockdowns and controls like Peoples' Republic of China. Forever. And yes, the result would be lingering shit economic conditions, crap jobs creation, and low inflation or deflation. Forever.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2775197]BTW, other than you, I don't know anyone who gives a shit about what Larry Summers thinks. Not even Democrats I know. Many Dems thought Summers was almost as much of a load and drag on what could have been an even faster and better recovery from GW Bush's Great Repub Crash and Recession under Obama as the Repubs in Congress. Summers' involvement in domestic economic issues under Clinton didn't even happen until after the most important and effective economic legislation had already been passed by Clinton and his Dem Congress.[/QUOTE]Summers and Furman agree that additional stimulus would have been wise after the 2008 recession caused by the Fed, mortgage originators, lenders, rating agencies and homebuyers, aided and abetted by Barney Frank, Charlie Rangel, Maxine Waters, Nancy Pelosi, and other Democratic politicians who forced financial institutions to give housing loans to people who could not afford them. They also agree the American Rescue Plan put way too much stimulus into the economy, and played a major part in the inflation since its passage.

As Robert Rubin's deputy, and later as Secretary of the Treasury, Summers presided over good things, along with President Clinton, Newt Gingrich, and a Republican House. (Spending bills originate in the House.) Federal government expenditures were the lowest as a % of GDP since the Ford administration. And they'll probably never be that low again. We balanced the budget and lowered the capital gains tax.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2775423]Indeed!

You're too generous. It wasn't only the Trump Administration and its Operation Warp Speed that paved the way to vaccinate most Americans and recover from the pandemic. Pfizer, BioNTech, and Moderna were each just as or more important.

I read the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan as a % of GDP was much larger than any stimulus plan passed by any other country in 2021, which is largely or mostly why inflation hit us before other countries. And that was just part of the $5 trillion in additional spending authorized by a Democratic President, House and Senate during the two years they controlled government.

I would thank them too if I were you! If my income were from renting out apartments and houses, like yours, I'd be over the moon! In the 12 months after the American Rescue Plan was passed and turbocharged inflation (March, 2021 to March, 2022) , asking rental rates were up 17%.

[URL]https://www.redfin.com/news/redfin-rental-report-may-2022/[/URL]

Average hourly earnings however were only up 5.6%.

[URL]https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CES0500000003[/URL]

Yes, landlords like you benefitted mightily. Working men and women who were stretching harder and harder to pay their rents did not.

I'm confused. I thought that was what you wanted. The only way to prevent your so called "Trump Pandemic" in the USA would have been to institute lockdowns and controls like Peoples' Republic of China. Forever. And yes, the result would be lingering shit economic conditions, crap jobs creation, and low inflation or deflation. Forever.

Summers and Furman agree that additional stimulus would have been wise after the 2008 recession caused by the Fed, mortgage originators, lenders, rating agencies and homebuyers, aided and abetted by Barney Frank, Charlie Rangel, Maxine Waters, Nancy Pelosi, and other Democratic politicians who forced financial institutions to give housing loans to people who could not afford them. They also agree the American Rescue Plan put way too much stimulus into the economy, and played a major part in the inflation since its passage.

As Robert Rubin's deputy, and later as Secretary of the Treasury, Summers presided over good things, along with President Clinton, Newt Gingrich, and a Republican House. (Spending bills originate in the House.) Federal government expenditures were the lowest as a % of GDP since the Ford administration. And they'll probably never be that low again. We balanced the budget and lowered the capital gains tax.[/QUOTE]Now we have evidence that the 2 million+ American deaths from Trump's Pandemic virus spanning 2020 and into 2021 was a Trump Team and Family effort and result, not just due to Trump's own disastrous decisions creating the Pandemic in the first place and then assuring his mass murder victims for nearly a year that "It's disappearing. It will go away without a vaccine"!

[B]Transcripts: Jared Blocked Biden Transition From Covid Planning.
Biden was particularly angered that by slowing the transition process, Trumps actions could lead to more deaths[/B]

[URL]https://crooksandliars.com/2022/12/transcripts-jared-blocked-biden-transition[/URL]

Also, here are some of the Real World factors academics like Larry Summers missed when they jotted down a few math calculations and concluded, "Gee, lookie here. This stimulus is too much! We should do less now and do a little more next year, maybe a little more the year after that. You know, wait for those collapsed global supply-chains to start cranking out more supply so we don't overwhelm them with demand before they are ready to deliver. ".

Sounds wonderful, right? What a pleasant idea. Kinda' like that wonderfully pleasant Supply-Side / Trickle-Down Repub economic idea.

And it would have Crashed into the Real World and failed just as miserably.

1. Biden knew there was a 99.99% chance of at least a Pink Tinkle, a nod to PVM for that appropriate "Pink" description LOL, in the House at the 2022 midterms. Which meant there would be NO followup ANYTHING emanating from the House to help the USA or Global Economies starting this very next week. Practically speaking, anything that was going to recover America and worldwide economies from Trump's Pandemic disaster needed to be done in the first year or two. Period. There would be no 2nd, 3rd or more shots at it over a pleasantly paced few years.

Just one Dem Senate death, scandal bad enough to drive one out of office or defection for personal enrichment at any minute from January 20,2021 would also put a complete and total end to the recovery if all the usual Repub shenanigans worked to replace them with just one Repub.

2. Global supply-chains were NOT going to crank up back in action, rehire millions, start producing goods and products, shipping channels start flowing apace and all of the other pleasant conditions that counter the risk of hyper-inflation BEFORE there was overwhelming demand forcing them to do so. It does not happen the other way around in economics or business. Ever. Note the constant disastrous failure of that pleasant Supply-Side / Trickle-Down Repub idea.

Nope. Somebody, somewhere, some big and powerful nation of consumers, people who not only had the power to do it but could well afford to do it needed to lead the way to creating that overwhelming demand first and, yep, take the earliest hit of lower supply vs higher demand inflation and get those global supply-chains and shipping channels moving again, snap them out of their 2-year coma and start recovering the world from the unprecedented economic disaster of Trump's Pandemic.

But who in the world would be the logical leader for such a thing? Goodness gracious, Larry, let's put our pencils down, gather our Thoughts and Prayers and see if we can come up with the name of a nation brave and capable enough to do it.

Zimbabwe?

Brexit-crippled United Kingdom?

China?

How about the United States of America, Larry?

Thank you, America. More specifically, thank you Joe, Nancy, Chuck, the Dems and everyone who voted for them.

And, sure enough, they managed to lead the world in this historic recovery when no other nation would or could, weather the hyper-inflation without any significant hit to historic domestic jobs creation, consumer spending and economic expansion strong enough to make it a serious challenge for the Fed to artificially induce so much as a mild recession in order to cool it down.

That's what Biden knew and factored into the calculation that academics like Larry Summers did not.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2775423]Indeed!

You're too generous. It wasn't only the Trump Administration and its Operation Warp Speed that paved the way to vaccinate most Americans and recover from the pandemic. Pfizer, BioNTech, and Moderna were each just as or more important.

I read the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan as a % of GDP was much larger than any stimulus plan passed by any other country in 2021, which is largely or mostly why inflation hit us before other countries. And that was just part of the $5 trillion in additional spending authorized by a Democratic President, House and Senate during the two years they controlled government.

[b]I would thank them too if I were you! If my income were from renting out apartments and houses, like yours, I'd be over the moon! In the 12 months after the American Rescue Plan was passed and turbocharged inflation (March, 2021 to March, 2022) , asking rental rates were up 17%.[/b]

[URL]https://www.redfin.com/news/redfin-rental-report-may-2022/[/URL]

Average hourly earnings however were only up 5.6%.

[URL]https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CES0500000003[/URL]

Yes, landlords like you benefitted mightily. Working men and women who were stretching harder and harder to pay their rents did not.

[b]I'm confused. I thought that was what you wanted. The only way to prevent your so called "Trump Pandemic" in the USA would have been to institute lockdowns and controls like Peoples' Republic of China. Forever. And yes, the result would be lingering shit economic conditions, crap jobs creation, and low inflation or deflation. Forever.[/b]

Summers and Furman agree that additional stimulus would have been wise after the 2008 recession caused by the Fed, mortgage originators, lenders, rating agencies and homebuyers, aided and abetted by Barney Frank, Charlie Rangel, Maxine Waters, Nancy Pelosi, and other Democratic politicians who forced financial institutions to give housing loans to people who could not afford them. They also agree the American Rescue Plan put way too much stimulus into the economy, and played a major part in the inflation since its passage.

As Robert Rubin's deputy, and later as Secretary of the Treasury, Summers presided over good things, along with President Clinton, Newt Gingrich, and a Republican House. (Spending bills originate in the House.) Federal government expenditures were the lowest as a % of GDP since the Ford administration. And they'll probably never be that low again. We balanced the budget and lowered the capital gains tax.[/QUOTE]As a landlord, the destruction of worldwide economies thanks to Trump creating Trump's Pandemic has not been a net gain for me. Trump's decisions and economic stewardship wiping out millions upon millions of jobs for working men and women is not "good" for landlords whose tenants are those very men and women.

Despite Biden's historic jobs creation and recovery from the colossal mess Trump created and left behind, the mess was great enough for me to earn a tax refund for 2020, the first in several decades, due to lost income from a rental gone empty for a few months in 2020. In order to get it rented again ASAP under Trump's dire economic conditions, I did not increase the ask any higher than it had been before. I only raised rent a couple of months after I could according to the lease terms and then only by 5%.

And on the Trump lockdowns and closures, you do appear to be quite confused as stated. See, if Trump had not removed the officials whose job it was to monitor and alert the world of a potential Pandemic 5 months before those first cases emerged in China while Trump's intel assured him only a two or three month heads up would have been plenty to prevent the Pandemic from happening in the first place, there would have been no need for all those lockdowns and closures anywhere outside of a particular region in China.

And all while the vaccine manufacturers could follow Obama's Rapid Vaccine Response programs to create, test and acquire more effective and efficient approval of the best vaccines for it.

Where you got the idea that I wanted Trump to create Trump's Pandemic and plunge the world into economic paralysis, lockdowns and closures is bewildering and, I suppose, evidence of your confusion.

Hi Elvis,

Like I mentioned to JustTK a couple of times, we're arguing about history. Now practically all unvaccinated Americans have some immunity from severe COVID infection by virtue of being infected.

I never said the vaccine and boosters provided good protection from infection with Omicron variants. Rather, they provided good protection from severe disease, meaning hospitalization and death, in particular for older and high risk people.

This chart is enlightening, which shows death rate by vaccination status, for Americans over 50, from April 2, 2022 to September 3, 2022, when Omicron has predominated.

[URL]https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/united-states-rates-of-covid-19-deaths-by-vaccination-status?country=~50%2B[/URL]

Your sources show something similar if you dig deeper. For example,

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2775333]Tiny, those numbers are way off.

[URL]https://www.news-medical.net/news/20220621/Only-2025-of-Americans-have-effective-protection-against-Omicron-infection.aspx[/URL]

The study results demonstrated that the estimated proportion of the US population with a SARS-CoV-2 vaccination or infection history as of December 1, 2021, was 88.2%. Moreover, effective immunity toward the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron strain infection on December 1, 2021, was 21.8% nationwide.[/QUOTE]Your link above says, "Effective immunity against severe COVID-19 associated with Omicron was 61.2% across the US. " Please note that the effective immunity against severe disease from Omicron would be higher for the vaccinated and boosted versus the unvaccinated.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2775333][URL]https://time.com/6215580/original-vaccines-effectiveness-against-omicron/[/URL]

Researchers in Ontario analyzed data from more than 134,000 people, including those who tested positive for Delta and Omicron infections during December 2021. They found that people who were fully vaccinated (with two doses of an mRNA vaccine, from either Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech) experienced a decline in vaccine effectiveness against both Delta and Omicron infections, but the drop was greater against Omicron than against Delta. Among the vaccinated, the shots' effectiveness declined from 36% up to two months after the second dose of the primary series, to 1% up to four months later (or six months after the second dose).[/QUOTE]From the link above, "On the plus side, Kwong's study confirmed previous data showing that [B] vaccinated people who also received a first booster dose remain protected from getting seriously ill with COVID-19, even if they are infected with Omicron; vaccine effectiveness against severe disease was about 95% a week or more after the third dose." [/B]

The study described in your third link, on [URL]msn.com[/URL], which has been highly publicized from what I can see, didn't look at severe disease.

This study was mentioned prominently on Doctor Radio (Sirius XM channel 110) the other evening, which indicates the new Omicron booster is 84% effective at keeping people over 65 out of the hospital, compared to seniors who never got the vaccine:

[URL]https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm715152e2.htm[/URL]

Like I've written here before, mostly replying to JustTK, if you're relatively young and not high risk, the case wasn't as strong for vaccination and boosters. If I had been 30 again in 2021, I probably would have gotten vaccinated and boosted, but I'm not sure that would be the best path to take. For people like me though, who are older or high risk, it's a no brainer.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2775333]And Paxlovid is a shit drug too. [URL]https://time.com/6198667/paxlovid-who-should-take-covid-19/[/URL].

When you say it does not help the vaccinated and people under 65 (one study showed it hurt younger people), you are stretching it. To me, it is like what is next? People with jock itch but only those with warts on their left foot? And seeing as how the vaccines do not work against omicron, why should they affect Paxlovid? Still, this shit drug is slated to make billions just like the vaccines that do not work against omicron either.[/QUOTE]From what I've read and heard on Doctor Radio, Paxlovid is a great option for high risk patients. I'm not sure that I'd be classified as high risk, being over 50 but under 65 but otherwise healthy. But I don't care. I'd take try to get the stuff, even if symptoms were mild at the time of the test. What's the downside? From what people have told me and what I've read, it's the taste. A small price to pay if it prevents hospitalization or long COVID. The Japanese are the most overmedicated people in the world, and they live longer than the rest of us.

You seem to know more about this than your average bear though. If you're aware of real downsides, other than having to stop certain medications while you're on Paxlovid, I'd appreciate your passing that on.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2775524]And on the Trump lockdowns and closures, you do appear to be quite confused as stated. See, if Trump had not removed the officials whose job it was to monitor and alert the world of a potential Pandemic 5 months before those first cases emerged in China while Trump's intel assured him only a two or three month heads up would have been plenty to prevent the Pandemic from happening in the first place, there would have been no need for all those lockdowns and closures anywhere outside of a particular region in China.[/QUOTE]Hi Tooms, This sounds like something that might come from the pen of a conspiracy theorist, like a QAnon adherent, instead of one of our venerable left-of-center Board Members. It might make a good plot for a movie. A young Harrison Ford is a scientist who is planted within the Chinese CDC. He brilliantly and presciently persuades the Chinese authorities that the world is on the verge of a pandemic and somehow they stop the spread.

But come on. We're not living in the world of Deng Xiaopeng and Jimmy Carter. We're living in the world of Ji Xin Ping, and both American political parties want to punish China economically and the Democrats want to make Ji a pariah. Chinese authorities covered up the pandemic, and persecuted doctors and other citizens who tried to publicize what was happening in Wuhan. Millions of Chinese, a number of whom were infected with COVID, were flying all over China and the rest of the world up through the Lunar New Year (late January, 2020). The cat was out of the bag. COVID mostly came to the USA via travelers from Europe, not China.

The World Health Organization wasn't in a position to make a difference, let alone the USA CDC.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2775493][URL]https://crooksandliars.com/2022/12/transcripts-jared-blocked-biden-transition[/URL][/QUOTE]That's a new one, Crooks and Liars, a Progressive media site dedicated to calling Republicans crooks and liars. Well, Americans need to pull their heads out of the sand. Most of the politicians at the federal level are crooks and liars. The only exceptions in my book are some of the Republicans who Trump made unelectable.

The one substantive point you make in your post, with basis in fact, is about supply chains. I've already addressed this in a previous reply. Supply chains are fucked up partly because of lockdowns in China, which again I presume you and many other Democrats would support if you were Chinese, based on your criticisms of Trump and Republican governors. Then there were the Trump tariffs, which Biden could have remedied with the stroke of a pen. Instead he piled more restrictions on China, and the result is wholesale re-construction of supply chains to avoid Chinese production.

Also there's the war in Ukraine / Russia, which sent fuel prices up, re-routed Russian oil, gas and coal to new markets, and caused grain prices to go up and grain supply to go down. You and I may dislike Trump, but my guess is none of this would have happened if he'd been re-elected. Furthermore, Democrats' existential threats to the fossil fuels industry in the USA (banning drilling on federal leases, banning fracking, going too fast to net "0" carbon emissions) definitely increased the cost of electricity and natural gas used for heating and industrial applications in the U.S. And made it more difficult for USA LNG to serve as a partial replacement for Russian gas supplies to Europe. The effect on gasoline prices wasn't as great, but still there to an extent.

And how about the effect of the American Rescue Plan on logistics in America, in 2021? Poorly targeted extended unemployment benefits and other handouts (e.g. $1400 checks to most Americans) discouraged work. A lot of younger American males, many of whom could have worked in warehouses and driving trucks and the like, decided to sit on their asses at home. And then there was the situation in the California ports. American businesses came up with a list of solutions for the port hang ups, and the Newsome administration basically told them to fuck off.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2775951]That's a new one, Crooks and Liars, a Progressive media site dedicated to calling Republicans crooks and liars. Well, Americans need to pull their heads out of the sand. Most of the politicians at the federal level are crooks and liars. The only exceptions in my book are some of the Republicans who Trump made unelectable.

The one substantive point you make in your post, with basis in fact, is about supply chains. I've already addressed this in a previous reply. Supply chains are fucked up partly because of lockdowns in China, which again I presume you and many other Democrats would support if you were Chinese, based on your criticisms of Trump and Republican governors. Then there were the Trump tariffs, which Biden could have remedied with the stroke of a pen. Instead he piled more restrictions on China, and the result is wholesale re-construction of supply chains to avoid Chinese production.

Also there's the war in Ukraine / Russia, which sent fuel prices up, re-routed Russian oil, gas and coal to new markets, and caused grain prices to go up and grain supply to go down. You and I may dislike Trump, but my guess is none of this would have happened if he'd been re-elected. Furthermore, Democrats' existential threats to the fossil fuels industry in the USA (banning drilling on federal leases, banning fracking, going too fast to net "0" carbon emissions) definitely increased the cost of electricity and natural gas used for heating and industrial applications in the U.S. And made it more difficult for USA LNG to serve as a partial replacement for Russian gas supplies to Europe. The effect on gasoline prices wasn't as great, but still there to an extent.

And how about the effect of the American Rescue Plan on logistics in America, in 2021? Poorly targeted extended unemployment benefits and other handouts (e.g. $1400 checks to most Americans) discouraged work. A lot of younger American males, many of whom could have worked in warehouses and driving trucks and the like, decided to sit on their asses at home. And then there was the situation in the California ports. American businesses came up with a list of solutions for the port hang ups, and the Newsome administration basically told them to fuck off.[/QUOTE]I was so looking forward to your explanation for why and how all those global manufacturers, supply-chains, shipping and delivery firms would magically put Trillions into staffing up, cranking up factories, producing abundant supplies of goods and products and be poised to fill orders, ship and deliver ASAP in the wake of Trump's Pandemic's unprecedented 2-tear economic coma and millions upon millions of jobs wiped out long BEFORE there was overwhelming demand from customers with MONEY in their pockets ready to be spent so as to, you know, make sure even the first customers out of the gate would not be inconvenienced by a pesky low supply-high demand rate of inflation.

Alas, you've got nothing for the real problem at hand in the real world as it really exists. As usual. You and Larry Summers.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2775948]Hi Tooms, This sounds like something that might come from the pen of a conspiracy theorist, like a QAnon adherent, instead of one of our venerable left-of-center Board Members. It might make a good plot for a movie. A young Harrison Ford is a scientist who is planted within the Chinese CDC. He brilliantly and presciently persuades the Chinese authorities that the world is on the verge of a pandemic and somehow they stop the spread.

But come on. We're not living in the world of Deng Xiaopeng and Jimmy Carter. We're living in the world of Ji Xin Ping, and both American political parties want to punish China economically and the Democrats want to make Ji a pariah. Chinese authorities covered up the pandemic, and persecuted doctors and other citizens who tried to publicize what was happening in Wuhan. Millions of Chinese, a number of whom were infected with COVID, were flying all over China and the rest of the world up through the Lunar New Year (late January, 2020). The cat was out of the bag. COVID mostly came to the USA via travelers from Europe, not China.

The World Health Organization wasn't in a position to make a difference, let alone the USA CDC.[/QUOTE][URL]https://news.yahoo.com/bob-woodward-stunned-trump-told-091902598.html[/URL]

[QUOTE]Talking to Woodward on March 19, 2020, Trump said Barron, then 13, asked what was going on and he answered: I said, it came out of China, Barron. Pure and simple. It came out of China. And it shouldve been stopped. [b]And to be honest with you, Barron, they shouldve let it be known it was a problem two months earlier ... the world wouldnt have a problem. We could have stopped it easily.[/b][/QUOTE][B]Trump says China should have told us about coronavirus. He removed the official meant to do that.
A US epidemiologist was embedded with the Chinese CDC. The Trump administration discontinued the position.
March 23, 2020[/B]

[URL]https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/3/23/21190713/coronavirus-trump-china-cdc-embed-quick[/URL]

[QUOTE]The Trump administration told the United States embed at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that the position would be defunded, causing her to leave her post in July 2019, according to a report from Reuterss Marisa Taylor. The embed helped train Chinese public health experts and served in part as a liaison between Chinese officials and their counterparts in the US.

With the administration planning to discontinue the role, [b]the embed return to the US about five months before China began to see its first Covid-19 cases. Under normal circumstances, the embed likely would have passed information about the novel virus to US officials. Instead, Chinese officials were able for weeks to conceal the virus and the threat it posed, leading to a delay in the worlds response to what was then a matter of great concern and is now a pandemic.[/b]
[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2776052]I was so looking forward to your explanation for why and how all those global manufacturers, supply-chains, shipping and delivery firms would magically put Trillions into staffing up, cranking up factories, producing abundant supplies of goods and products and be poised to fill orders, ship and deliver ASAP in the wake of Trump's Pandemic's unprecedented 2-tear economic coma and millions upon millions of jobs wiped out long BEFORE there was overwhelming demand from customers with MONEY in their pockets ready to be spent so as to, you know, make sure even the first customers out of the gate would not be inconvenienced by a pesky low supply-high demand rate of inflation.

Alas, you've got nothing for the real problem at hand in the real world as it really exists. As usual. You and Larry Summers.[/QUOTE]You're wrong about demand from consumers with money in their pockets. By the fall of 2020, retail sales, adjusted for inflation, were at all time highs.

[URL]https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RSXFS[/URL]

And unit auto sales were close to pre-pandemic levels.

[URL]https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TOTALSA[/URL]

Look at the 5 year series.

Thanks for putting me in the same category as Larry Summers. That's very kind, but I don't know jack about macroeconomics compared to him.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2776135]You're wrong about demand from consumers with money in their pockets. By the fall of 2020, retail sales, adjusted for inflation, were at all time highs.

[URL]https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RSXFS[/URL]

And unit auto sales were close to pre-pandemic levels.

[URL]https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TOTALSA[/URL]

Look at the 5 year series.

Thanks for putting me in the same category as Larry Summers. That's very kind, but I don't know jack about macroeconomics compared to him.[/QUOTE]Then I guess everyone on the planet was wrong about the collapse of global supply-chains by the end if 2020 and into 2021 and the suppliers were just faking it. Proven by your USA Domestic auto sales charts.

Oh wait. Trump was already sending stimulus checks in 2020 and maybe that triggered some auto sales. Gee, I wonder why that wasn't enough to set worldwide economies up and get global supply-chains moving again. Yeah, they were just faking it.

Well, it looks likes Trump's 2020 stimulus checks and the USA domestic auto sales weren't enough economic stimulation to get global supply-chains back up and moving all that much after all. If anything, America might have done more to get those chains filling inventories even faster on all retail markets.

[B]Retailers: Inventories to Sales Ratio:[/B]

[URL]https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RETAILIRSA[/URL]

Shhh. Don't tell Larry Summers the 2021 stimulus probably should have been bigger.