Diaries

Suffering in the US due to COVID-19 is brought to you in part by the Democratic Party, their supporters, and their Republican allies

Submitted by BayAreaLefty on Thu, 03/26/2020 - 2:35pm

Make no mistake about it: we are in this mess now as a direct result of the policies supported by both parties that own the government. I mean "own" literally: the two parties having members occupying approximately 100% of elected offices in the country are, officially, corporations. Their control over our government is ownership in the most fundamental sense.

the Senate coronavirus stimulus package: wsws crunches the numbers

Submitted by wendy davis on Thu, 03/26/2020 - 11:49am

Patrick Martin also notes the many caveats and unknowns afoot in potential waivers to the General Rules as to which corporate loans end as gifts, and more.  His explanation of each state having its own static metrics of unemployment compensation was new to me.  And yes, RT.com is reporting that there were 3.2 million new applications for compensation filed this week, obviously not just for employees ‘furloughed due to coronavirus’ as earlier reported as covered in the Stim package.

‘US Senate passes massive economic “rescue” bill’, Patrick Martin, 26 March 2020 (having permission, I’ll paste almost all of it in)

Mask to protect against viruses

Submitted by ScienceTeacher on Thu, 03/26/2020 - 6:54am

I was shocked to realize that the assorted health agencies had not made serious provisions for testing to find out who might be infected with the corona virus and was even more shocked to learn that they have not made much effort to have appropriate supplies available for hospitals dealing with large numbers of infectious patients. This shocking neglect to adequately supply hospitals means that there is almost no protective equipment available for the rest of us.

Hot Air

Submitted by magiamma on Thu, 03/26/2020 - 5:00am

How is it that so many people missed the boat on the COVID-19 crisis? Because it’s not rocket science. It’s not trivial, but it is definitely not rocket science.

The response of the Federal Government was insidiously purposeful and caught everyone off guard. We, the people, lost time. Precious time and it cost lives. And will cost more lives.

We live in a bureaucracy (not capitalism, not democracy)

Submitted by disrael on Thu, 03/26/2020 - 4:58am

I'm new here and very grateful for the step up in intelligence this site has over DKos. However on economics and politics I'm puzzled by the number of very well written and researched essays that take our living in a capitalist or democratic country as a starting point.

Some points on that:

A Modest Change To The Coronavirus Stimulus

Submitted by edg on Wed, 03/25/2020 - 6:05pm

mrwizard_1.gif

Many Americans are understandably outraged that corporations are being awarded $500 billion directly plus up to four trillion more in backchannel funding in the coronavirus stimulus plan. As a way to improve the bill and protect the American people, the U.S. Senate (aka "we work for them, not you") should add my modest change to the bailout plan.

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