American Politics

[QUOTE=Paulie97;2774561]The "propanganda" is yours as you cherrypicked your own source. It's amazing what one so often finds when they follow the links planted below the biased monger forum analysis. Here's one embedded link within where the case is made that the stimulus plan saved the US economy.

[URL]https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2022/05/02/inflation-rate-biden-stimulus-blamed/9578452002/?gnt-cfr=1[/URL]

And from your source it says:

"Some economists with lower-end estimates still argue that it's a mistake to put too much blame on the American Rescue Plan, which in their view was just a minor contributor to inflation. The White House shares this view. A senior White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there were other potential explanations for differing core inflation rates in the US and Europe, and that arguments blaming Biden's stimulus were merely correlational.

The US also stands out from other countries in a more favorable way: It had a quicker and stronger economic recovery in 2021. That indeed seems to be partly because of the Biden stimulus spending."

Underline the last point. Therefore it's complicated, and personal opinions are involved, as there's no way to know with certainty what all would have happened had we done much less or nothing. One point is very clear though, inflation has been a worldwide phenomenon, and all the posturing on that front lost the Repubs another seat in the senate while realizing an embarrassing pink trickle in the house.

Anyway I'm glad you guys still have so much time on your hands to try and decipher how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. I just got back from Colombia where I rang the bells of many beautiful, curvaceous 20 somethings. Life is grand and I will return soon. Wink.

[URL]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URAqnM1PP5E[/URL][/QUOTE]Inflation was not a worldwide phenomenon in the first half of 2021. At 6/30/2021, about 4 months after the American Rescue Plan was passed, YoY CPI inflation was under 2% in the Euro area and China and negative in Japan. It was 5.4% in the USA. During the same YoY period, average hourly earnings in the USA were only up 3.95%. Despite 12.5% growth in GDP over that 12 month period, the workingman's inflation adjusted wages fell by 1.5%. And he hasn't regained that since.

YOU'RE the one who's cherry picking. What do you think the White House is going to say? We were wrong? Larry Summers (the most prominent Democrat economist) was right? I don't subscribe to USA Today, so can't read your link. But I'd bet my bottom dollar that anyone quoted in it who actually said the American Rescue Plan saved the economy is highly biased.

All I did was provide a link. I didn't quote any of the text of the article, except the headline. Vox would be a bizarre place for me to go cherry picking. It's considered left wing ([URL]https://www.influencewatch.org/for-profit/vox/[/URL]) and pro Biden. I picked that source because no one could reasonably accuse me of cherry picking it. Vox was founded by Ezra Klein for goodness sake.

The article in its totality, including the charts and comments by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Jason Furman (Obama's chief economic advisor), and Wendy Edelberg (economist at left leaning Brookings Institution), will not leave you with a favorable view of the American Rescue Plan.

Congrats on your Colombian conquests. You probably spent more time traveling there than I spent writing here over the last month.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2774525]Carry on with the propaganda. Most nonpartisan economists who follow this believe the American Rescue Plan, which received "0" Republican votes, worsened inflation, and we would have been better off without it. You can put some Democrat economists in that camp too, like Larry Summers and Jason Furman.

[B]Bidens American Rescue Plan worsened inflation. The question is how much.[/B]

[URL]https://www.vox.com/23036340/biden-american-rescue-plan-inflation[/URL]

Inflation in goods and services has risen faster than wages since the American Rescue Plan was passed. The workingman slips farther and farther behind.

It's going to be interesting how you explain the Biden Recession of 2023, given that your analysis of the American economy only considers one variable, which political party the President belongs to.[/QUOTE]I was supposed to be explaining The Great Biden Recession that many Wingers here and in the media were screetching that we were already IN back in early 2021.

Never happened.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2774341]Anthony Fauci, Robert Redfield and others gave the Trump administration a lot of credit for Operation Warp Speed, after Trump left office.

I don't believe there are many (any?) knowledgeable public health experts who would agree with your contention that the pandemic would have been prevented if not for Trump's missteps.

During the very early stage pandemic, the CCP was lying to the local government officials and the people in Wuhan, and persecuting doctors who were attempting to warn the public. What makes you think they would have done jack to allow the CDC to better understand what was going on? There were flights from Wuhan to Europe and the USA all the way up until January 23. By that time COVID was in Europe and there was no way to stop it from developing into a pandemic.

Biden criticized Trump for xenophobia the day after Trump instituted a ban on travel from China.

[URL]https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/yes-biden-called-trumps-travel-restrictions-xenophobic/[/URL]

Trump's a liar, everybody knows that. And a Chinaphobe. If he did indeed say that there would have been no pandemic if we'd had 2 months more notice, why would you believe him?[/QUOTE]Trump agrees with my assessment of it. And when he first agreed with it in March 2020, he most certainly would have been privy to all available intel on why and how Trump's Pandemic could have been prevented:

[URL]https://news.yahoo.com/bob-woodward-stunned-trump-told-091902598.html[/URL]

[QUOTE]Trump on recorded audio, "It came out of China. And it shouldve been stopped. 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.[/QUOTE][B]Trump says China should have told us about coronavirus. He removed the official meant to do that.[/B]

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

[QUOTE]With the administration planning to discontinue the role, 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.
....
Trump said, "I wish China told us three months sooner that this was a problem, the president said. We didnt know about it, they knew about it, and they should have told us, we could have saved a lot of lives throughout the world.
....
As Redfield mentioned, the US and China have long collaborated on matters of public health. As part of that collaboration, China has allowed the US to embed a public health official in its CDC.

Until July 2019, that embed was Dr. Linda Quick, an epidemiologist. Quick led a program that trained Chinese epidemiologists in methods for discovering, tracking, researching, and containing diseases like Covid-19.[/QUOTE]

In order to "prove" what a great guy Misinformer of the Year Tucker Carlson is, your Breitbart link simply included a transcript from Misinformer of the Year Tucker Carlson's own misinformation show with zero links to substantiate his opinions.

In order to prove what a liar Misinformer of the Year Tucker Carlson is, my Media Matters link is chock full of hyper links citing the differences between the blithering misinformation spouted by Misinformer of the Year Tucker Carlson and the facts.

Media Matters is about calling out the media for lies and misinformation regardless of perceived political affiliation. MSNBC's Chris Matthews has earned their Misinformer of the Year Award in the past.

They can't wait to kick Biden in front of a speeding train, they are upset he isn't dead already.

So this CM?

[URL]https://www.huffpost.com/entry/chris-matthews-i-felt-thi_n_86449[/URL]

Or this CM?

Sure the left will kick a white guy in front of a speeding train any day of the week.

BTW your attempts to constantly manipulate the overton window on every issue is quite underwhelming I must say jajajajajaja.

ID warn you they will get to you eventually even though you think you're on the same team but you already bolted out of California, or is that why?

Did they sodomize you too bro?

First they came for the Communists.

And I did not speak out.

Because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the Socialists.

And I did not speak out.

Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists.

And I did not speak out.

Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews.

And I did not speak out.

Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me.

And there was no one left.

To speak out for me.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2774522]Hey, while I'm not a fan of the federal government in general, I agree that pandemic preparedness should be a focus of our federal government. George W. Bush and Bill Gates had it right. I'm not going to defend the Trump Administration for reducing funding for that. I will note that the real Dumb Ass behind a lot of the changes was John Bolton, who Trump did eventually fire.

As to Tooms' belief that COVID was "Trump's Pandemic", that Trump was responsible for it, it's laughable. Yes, 350,000 Americans died in 2020 from COVID, before a vaccine was available. Trump should have used the bully pulpit to encourage people to use N95 and KN95 masks and to avoid super spreader events (like his indoor campaign rally.) But a lot of people died in many other countries as well. When Biden took over we had the vaccine. And since then another 700,000 Americans have died from COVID. Fewer would be dead if the Biden administration had used its bully pulpit to persuade more Americans to get vaccinated and get Paxlovid.

Biden's a believer in the vaccine, masks and testing. But boy was he ineffective when it came to implementation. Only about 36% of Americans over 65 have received the bivalent booster. There should have been masks and test kits in every American's Christmas stocking a year ago, when Omicron kicked off. He was a day late and a dollar short.

You'll undoubtedly reply that Republicans were the ones who were less likely to get vaccinated and wear masks. Well, if the current dumb ass in the White House (I'd argue the current and last three occupants were all dumb asses) were a little more bipartisan instead of viewing his job as our country's Divider In Chief, maybe some Republicans would have been more receptive.[/QUOTE]You seem to forget that during one of Donnie the Dumbass' rallies before the 2020 election, he urged [B]his supporters[/B] to get vaccinated [B]and they boo'ed him[/B] after he said it. [URL]https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-booed-alabama-rally-after-telling-supporters-get-vaccinated-n1277404[/URL] And they also boo'ed him when he said that he had gotten a booster. [URL]https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2021-12-22/trump-tells-followers-he-got-a-booster-shot-they-booed[/URL].

What does this mean? What it means is that absolutely nothing that President Biden said or did re: COVID would have convinced Donnie's supporters to get vaccinated or boosted. After all, they were so stupid that they boo'ed their own god!

And the fact is that President Biden did press for more vaccinations. [URL]https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/11/22/fact-sheet-biden-administration-announces-six-week-campaign-to-get-more-americans-their-updated-covid-19-vaccine-before-end-of-the-year/[/URL] But also remember that SCOTUS (predictably) put the kaibash on vaccine mandates.

And you can complain all you want about vaccinations, etc and who refuses to get them but the facts are that, as a group, refusal to get vaccinated is higher (by a lot) among Repubs than Dems. [URL]https://morningconsult.com/covid19-vaccine-dashboard/[/URL] Free test kits and masks to everybody in the USA would have meant nothing since 30-some-odd-percent of the population would have thrown the masks away anyway.

The USA is so polarized right now that there is absolutely nothing that can be done to vaccinate the unvaccinated and to boost the unboosted. Or to convince the stupid that masks work. Or that social distancing works. Perhaps you remember the old adage: You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. That, in a nutshell, describes the USA.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2773325]Yes, the guy is [B]absolutely[/B] full of crap and so is every COVID vaccine denier.[/QUOTE]Yes, by all means make a statement and then do not look at the data.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2773325]Yes, there have been reports of blood clots. Since the vaccine deniers don't believe anything from the CDC, here's some data from the UK's Public Health service: "Up to 28 April 2021, the MHRA received 242 reports of thrombosis events with low platelets of which 93 were cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST), out of a total of 22.6 million first doses ofCOVID-19 AZ vaccine given by that date in the UK. " I'm not going to bother doing the math because the vaccine deniers will say that the math is "fake news", but when I went to school, 242 reported cases out of 22.6 million doses is an extremely small percentage.[/QUOTE]Hey, that is TTP, a very specific disorder with a 90% mortality if untreated. Thrombotic (clots) thrombocytopenic (low platelets) purpura (rash). This is an autoimmune clotting mechanism different than the one I previously listed, and low platelets are usually associated with high bleeding rates not clots.

And BTW, do you think the immune system works as all or nothing? In other words, do all allergies have to be anaphylactic or can there be milder symptoms like just a rash or a runny nose? Or in this case, can there be clots without TTP? Of course, there can.

Point is the vaccine causes clots, and blood clots are not a big deal if they are just localized to someone's arm. Thing is that the spike protein created by the vaccine and what creates the immune response is not going to do much damage if it stays in the arm. The problem is that it did not. When it hits the ovaries, heart, and lungs, that is when the clotting causes a mess.

Drug companies swore the spike protein stayed in the arm, and it does not. For some people, it migrates, and you have no clue how often it does.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2773224]I tend to believe this guy when he's talking about statins and the like. I don't know, because my doctor's never prescribed those for me, so I've never looked at them closely.[/QUOTE]Everything he said on statins and the vaccines is correct.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2773224]I think he's probably largely full of crap about the COVID vaccine. I say that after initially thinking maybe he's on to something and I've been mistaken. But looking at CDC and UK data, the death rates from heart attacks and other heart disease haven't really gone up since the start of 2021. From listening to him you'd think that deaths from heart disease should be up 20%. They're not.[/QUOTE]Death rates are tricky. You can put a lot under Covid related deaths. And 95% of all people who die in hospitals have blood clots, and 30% have large ones, so these deaths can be hidden, but there has been a rise in cardiac issues particularly with younger men.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2773224]A second point he brought up, that you had to vaccinate 7320 people over the age of 18 to save one life during the Omicron wave, is absurd.[/QUOTE]No, that is people over 80. The number of people over 18 is probably 100,000 people because so few young people die with the vaccine. At that rate, just the TTP risk would be reason to pull the vaccine. That one in 800 people are disabled from the vaccine is new data to me but is true from what I have seen.

Remember what the vaccine does Tiny. Whenever you see Covid, you see these limbs of attachment. That is the spike protein. It is not the lethal part of the virus, and that spike protein has adapted such that the body's most specific antibodies (monoclonal antibodies) do not recognize it. Most of the lab made monoclonal antibodies (MAs) had to be junked with omicron.

The immune system is like an army and the MAs were the snipers. They would kill the virus and nothing else. The rest of the immune system is like rockets and tanks which destroy healthy tissue along with the virus. And all the vaccine is doing now is those rockets and tanks, and that is why it should be pulled.

What should have happened is the vaccine should have been mandated for everyone if alpha stayed around. With delta, the vaccine should have been limited to high risk. With omicron, it should be pulled. No one asks vaccine status anymore because it does not matter.

So you have the Republican retards who are ridiculously antivax (we do not have any here despite what is said) and then you have the Democratic douches piling on saying the vaccine still works when it clearly does not. It is amazing how much of this debate is driven by politics and not scientific data.

On top of the vaccine not working, this current strand of Covid is not just like the flu. It is much weaker than the flu. This current crop of Influenza A is nasty and the flu vaccine appears not to have worked. Then you are seeing horrible RSV infections in young children which is likely a product of all the stupid school shutdowns and lockdowns.

Just like you have limits on cranking out snipers and tanks during the war, your body has a limited capacity with its immune system. Taking the vaccine is the equivalent of the Maginot line and fighting yesterday's war. I could give a shit about Covid now. You do not even think the people who have it look sick. In comparison, people with influenza A now look like death warmed over. Not only is the drug for it, Tamiflu, been out at most pharmacies, some drug stores are limiting the amount you can purchase of children's Advil and Tylenol.

Interesting post, thanks Elvis.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2774766]Death rates are tricky. You can put a lot under Covid related deaths. And 95% of all people who die in hospitals have blood clots, and 30% have large ones, so these deaths can be hidden, but there has been a rise in cardiac issues particularly with younger men.[/QUOTE]The way around that is to look at excess deaths. The Economist tries to keep track of that on a daily basis, but you have to subscribe to see the data. Our World in Data picks up some of the info from the Economist.

[URL]https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid[/URL]

And the World Health Organization recently published a paper on the subject in Nature.

[URL]https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05522-2[/URL]

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.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2774766]No, that is people over 80. The number of people over 18 is probably 100,000 people because so few young people die with the vaccine. [/QUOTE]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.

By the way, these numbers would also imply an average infection fatality ratio for the unvaccinated during Omicron so far of about 0.19%, or actually a bit lower, as I'm assuming the unvaccinated only got Omicron once. This is lower than the 0.5% back in 2020 and early 2021.

And it's continuing to drop. More and more people have gotten infected, thus gaining immunity. The peak official case count during January, 2022, during the Omicron was around 800,000/ day. Previously the highest was around 250,000 per day.

This virologist estimates the IFR is now around .05% to .07%.

[URL]https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1599830528420904961[/URL]

He was quoted in the New York Times,

"The virologist Trevor Bedford, at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Institute in Seattle, has estimated that the risk of Covid is similar to that of the flu, with one death in 2,000 infections, about one tenth of what it was originally, with one death in 200 infections.

But data from England, and the decrease in publicly reported PCR. Tests, suggests there is likely a tenfold increase in unreported Covid cases compared with a year ago, Dr. Bedford said. Because there are more Covid infections than flu infections each year, more Americans are likely to die from Covid even if the death rate is similar. Moreover, Dr. Bedford wrote on Twitter that the risk of long Covid, a constellation of symptoms that can plague people for months, places the "health burden of Covid substantially higher than influenza."

In any event, it appears that if your average American gets COVID, he's no more likely to die from it than the flu.

I've gotten a flu shot every year since I turned 30. I haven't had the flu since. I got the COVID vaccine and three boosters, and I haven't gotten COVID. In fact, I've only gotten a cold once since COVID kicked off. Maybe the vaccine provides some protection against other coronaviruses, besides COVID. I don't want to get the flu or COVID, so I'll continue getting shots to reduce the risk of getting severe disease.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2774766]At that rate, just the TTP risk would be reason to pull the vaccine. That one in 800 people are disabled from the vaccine is new data to me but is true from what I have seen.[/QUOTE]I wasn't aware of the TTP risk for the mRNA vaccines before reading this. From what I'm Googling, the risk appears to be small. This study was only able to identify published case reports for 27 patients where they linked TTP to the vaccines.

[URL]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9060716/[/URL]

I agree there's risk. A friend of mine probably died from the COVID vaccine. Still, I believe it's a numbers game, and for someone my age, I'm about 100X (wild guess) more likely to die from the disease than from the vaccines and boosters.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2774766]Remember what the vaccine does Tiny. Whenever you see Covid, you see these limbs of attachment. That is the spike protein. It is not the lethal part of the virus, and that spike protein has adapted such that the body's most specific antibodies (monoclonal antibodies) do not recognize it. Most of the lab made monoclonal antibodies (MAs) had to be junked with omicron.

The immune system is like an army and the MAs were the snipers. They would kill the virus and nothing else. The rest of the immune system is like rockets and tanks which destroy healthy tissue along with the virus. And all the vaccine is doing now is those rockets and tanks, and that is why it should be pulled.[/QUOTE]Wouldn't the new bivalent vaccine, and newer (future versions) overcome this to an extent, like for the flu vaccine?

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2774766]On top of the vaccine not working, this current strand of Covid is not just like the flu. It is much weaker than the flu. This current crop of Influenza A is nasty and the flu vaccine appears not to have worked. Then you are seeing horrible RSV infections in young children which is likely a product of all the stupid school shutdowns and lockdowns. Just like you have limits on cranking out snipers and tanks during the war, your body has a limited capacity with its immune system. Taking the vaccine is the equivalent of the Maginot line and fighting yesterday's war. I could give a shit about Covid now. You do not even think the people who have it look sick. In comparison, people with influenza A now look like death warmed over. Not only is the drug for it, Tamiflu, been out at most pharmacies, some drug stores are limiting the amount you can purchase of children's Advil and Tylenol. [/QUOTE]If you've been following this, I've no doubt it's true, as to the current crop of Influenza A. Bedford's point (see above) is that COVID is more contagious than the flu and COVID can produce long lasting effects.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2774762]You seem to forget that during one of Donnie the Dumbass' rallies before the 2020 election, he urged [B]his supporters[/B] to get vaccinated [B]and they boo'ed him[/B] after he said it. [URL]https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-booed-alabama-rally-after-telling-supporters-get-vaccinated-n1277404[/URL] And they also boo'ed him when he said that he had gotten a booster. [URL]https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2021-12-22/trump-tells-followers-he-got-a-booster-shot-they-booed[/URL].

What does this mean? What it means is that absolutely nothing that President Biden said or did re: COVID would have convinced Donnie's supporters to get vaccinated or boosted. After all, they were so stupid that they boo'ed their own god![/QUOTE]This is an excellent illustration of why this is not "Trump's Pandemic", as Tooms says. America is a free country. People were going to do what people were going to do, regardless of what Trump did or said. Plus, thankfully given our differences and divisions, we have a federal system. Texas and Florida had different COVID strategies than New York and California. Trump didn't have control over that.

Since February, 2021, those of us who wanted to protect ourselves could get vaccinated and wear N95 or KN95 masks when appropriate. My main complaint about those who took this lightly and got hospitalized for COVID is that that the taxpayer and those paying the insurance bills had to pay for their treatment.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2774600]I was supposed to be explaining The Great Biden Recession that many Wingers here and in the media were screetching that we were already IN back in early 2021.

Never happened.[/QUOTE]There's a good chance we'll go into a recession next year as a result of higher interest rates, to control inflation. Despite my beliefs about the American Rescue Plan I will not ascribe most, or even the majority of the blame for the recession to Biden.

[QUOTE=MarquisdeSade1;2774620]In order to "prove" what a great guy Misinformer of the Year Tucker Carlson is, your Breitbart link simply included a transcript from Misinformer of the Year Tucker Carlson's own misinformation show with zero links to substantiate his opinions.

In order to prove what a liar Misinformer of the Year Tucker Carlson is, my Media Matters link is chock full of hyper links citing the differences between the blithering misinformation spouted by Misinformer of the Year Tucker Carlson and the facts.

Media Matters is about calling out the media for lies and misinformation regardless of perceived political affiliation. MSNBC's Chris Matthews has earned their Misinformer of the Year Award in the past.

They can't wait to kick Biden in front of a speeding train, they are upset he isn't dead already.

So this CM?

[URL]https://www.huffpost.com/entry/chris-matthews-i-felt-thi_n_86449[/URL]

Or this CM?

Sure the left will kick a white guy in front of a speeding train any day of the week.

BTW your attempts to constantly manipulate the overton window on every issue is quite underwhelming I must say jajajajajaja.

ID warn you they will get to you eventually even though you think you're on the same team but you already bolted out of California, or is that why?

Did they sodomize you too bro?

First they came for the Communists.

And I did not speak out.

Because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the Socialists.

And I did not speak out.

Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists.

And I did not speak out.

Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews.

And I did not speak out.

Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me.

And there was no one left.

To speak out for me.[/QUOTE]And all of that drama just to help your beloved Repubs win elections so they can continue to enrich and delight Mainstream Media with their inevitable massive jobs destruction, economic and national security disaster results headlines.

Well, to each his own.

Oh, here's another CM for your collection:

[B]Matthews on Bush and the port deal: He looks like he's a wise man now ... almost Atticus Finch[/B]

[URL]https://www.mediamatters.org/msnbc/matthews-bush-and-port-deal-he-looks-hes-wise-man-now-almost-atticus-finch[/URL]

[QUOTE]On the February 24 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, host Chris Matthews joined Weekly Standard senior writer Stephen F. Hayes in praising President Bush's handling of the controversial agreement to turn over control of six U.S. ports to a company owned by the government of Dubai. Matthews compared Bush to Atticus Finch -- the Alabama lawyer who "represents morality and reason" in Harper Lee's 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird (Warner Books).

Matthews's comparison of Bush to Finch -- a character portrayed by Gregory Peck in a 1962 film adaptation (Brentwood Productions, Pakula-Mulligan, Universal International Pictures) of the novel, and voted the number one movie hero of all time by the American Film Institute -- is just the most recent example of his over-the-top praise for Bush. As Media Matters for America has documented, Matthews previously gushed that Bush sometimes glimmers with sunny nobility; and falsely claimed that "everybody sort of likes the president, except for the real whack-jobs."[/QUOTE]Mind you, until you and your partners in typically pro-Repub MSM helped Trump become a so-called potus, GW Bush had the worst jobs, economic and national security record in history. Quite the opposite of Obama, Biden, Clinton and, well, every other Dem POTUS, you know. The ones we "whack-jobs" prefer to support.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2774855]There's a good chance we'll go into a recession next year as a result of higher interest rates, to control inflation. Despite my beliefs about the American Rescue Plan I will not ascribe most, or even the majority of the blame for the recession to Biden.[/QUOTE]But why wouldn't you?

If you think the hyper-inflation occurring around the world was largely or significantly triggered by Biden's American Rescue Plan recovery legislation rather than the inevitable outcome of waking up and reviving pent up consumerism from a 2-year economic coma in the midst of collapsed global supply-chains and nonexistent staffing, wouldn't that legislation also be the culprit behind the Fed's efforts to artificially induce a recession in order to tame it?

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2774853]My main complaint about those who took this lightly and got hospitalized for COVID is that that the taxpayer and those paying the insurance bills had to pay for their treatment.[/QUOTE]Ok great to hear that your a vegan, teetotal, exercising, non-smoker Tiny.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2774940]Ok great to hear that your a vegan, teetotal, exercising, non-smoker Tiny.[/QUOTE]Hey, I don't think there's any way society can avoid paying for medical expenses of smokers, the obese, the alcoholics, the sedentary and those who contract diseases because they're not cautious. And I don't believe it would be morally justified. But people who do that should stop. They put a cost on the rest of us, and most importantly on themselves. And yes, for most of us, in the long term smoking was and is a much, much bigger risk than failing to use masks when appropriate or not getting vaccinated.

As I've mentioned a couple of times to you, at this point, given that almost all Americans and Europeans have some immunity from COVID through disease if not vaccination, I don't think this is much of an issue. We're arguing about history. Please note I used past tense.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2774917]But why wouldn't you [blame Biden for a recession caused by the Fed increasing interest rates to control inflation]?

If you think the hyper-inflation occurring around the world was largely or significantly triggered by Biden's American Rescue Plan recovery legislation rather than the inevitable outcome of waking up and reviving pent up consumerism from a 2-year economic coma in the midst of collapsed global supply-chains and nonexistent staffing, wouldn't that legislation also be the culprit behind the Fed's efforts to artificially induce a recession in order to tame it?[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2749483]And blaming recessions on the president is downright naive. To the extent that government has any control over the economic cycle, it's mostly in the hands of the Fed. What control does the chief executive, or the central bank (Fed) for that matter, have over whether there's a pandemic? Or whether OPEC decides to jack up oil prices? The timing of a dot com boom? Or, as an explanation of recessions in European countries, and a partial explanation of the upcoming Biden recession, a Russian invasion of Ukraine? Well, not a hell of a lot.

I tried to make this sink in by showing the correlation between Democratic presidents and American casualties in foreign wars, but it didn't stick, at least for Tooms.[/QUOTE]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.