Possibly the scariest chart you will ever see

If a picture is worth a thousand words, this chart is worth a book.

realunem.PNG

We may be just weeks away from reaching the never-achieved before milestone of half of the population not having a job.
We are just days away from the eviction moratoriums ending in most states. Which will lead to a surge in homeless families living on the streets like never before.

And we get to chose between Biden and Trump to "fix this".

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Even to bring it up elicits a fierce accusation of Trumpism and indifference to suffering from too many people who call themselves progressive. No matter how hard I hit the other side of the equation -- yes I wear a mask and yes I agree that universally respected limitations are necessary to reduce the damage the virus does. I do not even say that the lockdown was unwise or unnecessary. Nope, just mention the economy and a frightening number of my acquaintances go ape shit.

But I maintain that a refusal to even think about the economic calamity that we have just caused is worse than ignoring the virus. Just as there is no data base for an all purpose "model" of this novel pandemic, there is no economic history of intentionally triggering a Depression -- which is now fait accompli.

For better and almost certainly for worse, virtually the entire population of the country followed the order to shut down public life, something that has never happened before. Thus there is no way to quantify the death, disease, homelessness, crime, divorce and madness that are coming with massive unemployment and dislocation to come.

Well, the other jackboot will fall as this summer plays out. We will find out the hard way if this was such a good idea. I hope the deaths stay as low as possible and the economy recovers quickly.

Hope is nice.

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I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.

Pricknick's picture

@fire with fire
will this be a quick recovery.

I hope the deaths stay as low as possible and the economy recovers quickly.

When the top 1% have flourished, while most others have languished, it is a sure sign of the shit to come.
I too hope for deaths to stay low as we need an army to defeat those who could care less.

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Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.

@fire with fire

Thus there is no way to quantify the death, disease, homelessness, crime, divorce and madness that are coming with massive unemployment and dislocation to come.

I did this essay a couple months ago.

No model or guesswork is required to foresee the deadly impact. Job losses cause extreme suffering. Every 1% hike in the unemployment rate will likely produce a 3.3% increase in drug overdose deaths and a 0.99% increase in suicides according to data provided by the National Bureau of Economic Research and the medical journal Lancet. These are facts based on experience, not models. If unemployment hits 32%, some 77,000 Americans are likely to die from suicide and drug overdoses as a result of layoffs. Scientists call these fatalities deaths of despair.

Then add the predictable deaths from alcohol abuse caused by unemployment. Health economist Michael French from the University of Miami and a co-author found a "significant association between job loss" and binge drinking and alcoholism.

The impact of layoffs goes beyond suicide, drug overdosing and drinking. Overall, the death rate for an unemployed person is 63% higher than for someone with a job, according to findings in Social Science & Medicine.

These are hard numbers based on historical patterns. There is no doubt that at a certain point the lockdown will kill more people than the virus.
Calls at suicide hotlines have increased by 800 percent.

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@gjohnsit I agree with what you are getting at in your post, but I have some quibbles about your terminology. I don't think predicting future social costs due to unemployment from previous statistical analysis of rising unemployment rates will give you "hard numbers."

In fact, I believe that will understate the harm dramatically. The method suggested by your comment is based on a linear projection. If unemployment went from 5% to 10% and we see X number of deaths caused by that rise, then we can calculate how many will die if unemployment goes to 50%. We do linear algebra to predict that the death toll will be nine times higher. (Er, I think that is the answer as I slept through that class in the ninth grade.)

I suggest that if unemployment goes to levels that have never been measured in history, there is no meaningful data from the past to study. When the number of people without hope or care reaches a majority, the fundamentals of civilized life melt away. Getting food will become a jungle. Finding temporary shelter from cold and rain will become a test for "law enforcement."

There is no chapter in the Economics 101 Textbook called, "Intentional Depression."

So, although I quibble with your word choices, I appreciate your point. We can indeed make a plausible guestimate of the harm of the lockdown, provided it ever ends. And the tools you suggest can be thought of as a floor for the harm. It will be at least as bad as linear projection predicts -- but probably a lot worse.

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I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.

Pluto's Republic's picture

@fire with fire

Fauci said to expect 100,000 new cases daily.

Another CDC doctor said that the US is saturated with the virus. The size of the virus load is thick and massive. We're past the point of containment.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/29/cdc-says-us-has-way-too-much-virus-to-co...

But there was some good news:

S&P 500 ends best quarter since 1998 on a high note

and

Joe Biden rips Trump over coronavirus, calls reporter ‘lying dog face’

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato

@Pluto's Republic As I said in my prior comment:

No matter how hard I hit the other side of the equation -- yes I wear a mask and yes I agree that universally respected limitations are necessary to reduce the damage the virus does. I do not even say that the lockdown was unwise or unnecessary.

Just for a sense of perspective, however, let me now suggest a point of comparison. The current death toll attributed to the virus in the US is below 130,000. Let's goose it up to 160,000 and then double that number to 320,000. A horrible fate for a third of a million human beings, and a crushing blow to as many families. Once it gets that bad, the death toll will be one tenth of one percent, and one person in a thousand.

Multiply that catastrophe by another factor of 5 -- well over 10 times the current death toll, and the number of fatalities reaches one half of one percent of the population, roughly the rate experienced during the 1918 pandemic in the USA. For all I know, the final percentage could be 100% and it was nice knowing everybody.

No matter how one assesses the "scientific facts," we have no good options.

My point is that any assessment of the harm of the virus must be compared to a similarly rigorous assessment of the harm of the lockdown. Just repeating over and over again how bad it is to get sick and die does not answer the objection that getting killed by somebody who wants the food in your refrigerator is an equally appalling fate.

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I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.

Roy Blakeley's picture

@fire with fire in a rational manner have suffered a lot less and will suffer a lot less. The United States completely and utterly fucked up the response to COVID-19 and we are doing it again. This fall will be tragic.

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Pricknick's picture

include the link for the graph.
Thanks in advance.

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Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.

travelerxxx's picture

@Pricknick

I believe this is the chart he's using, right here.

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Pricknick's picture

@travelerxxx

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Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.

RantingRooster's picture

Maybe this is when the Christian GOD steps back into the spot light, and starts the 7 years of trials and tribulations, so by what 2027 the planetary population will have been whittled down by rapid, runway climate change, and multiple corona epidemics, to the final 144 thousand "saved", ie 12K of each of the original 12 tribes of Israel.

While Chucky Schummer is calling for more "sanctions" on Russia, because, well, apparently Russia paid some bounty hunters, don't know if they were Afghani or someone else, the NYT keeps changing their story, but, criminals really, who had the audacity to kill some American troops for money, and Bernie boy is calling for a super, HUGE, by golly, 10% cut to the military's budget that is $120 billion more than Obama's last military budget, because 188 democrats voted for it.

On top of a raging lethal pandemic, depending on who one "wants" to "believe", could be just sniffles or could the real thing, but, it's been reported that now over 127,000 American are dead from this COVID virus, the GOP is boasting about a stock market totally devoid of reality or actual "value", at all.

And gee the government bailed out business, showering them in helicopter money, while giving "the people" a measly $1,200 stimulus check, and a extra few buck is unemployment for the million fired or laid off from their jobs, as Gjohsit's chart notes above, but certainly not providing proper PPE for "essential workers, or even giving a shit for that matter.

All it could have took is one senator, just one, to hold up the vote until the people had something in it for them, but no, grand standing in front of the camera's by both Bernie boy and BabybearACO, lamenting the GOP's cold hearted and callus ways, proved more important than fighting for "the people". Gee thanks!

And the Senate, the fucking senate is about to take an 18 day vacation, while the rent is due, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousand of evictions are pilling up on our judiciaries desks, and by golly they got to have their pound of flesh too, so evictions will start in earnest in late July or early August.

My god we have #KenAndKaren's, rich people whigged out on episodes of Law & Order, banishing a Ar-style military rifle and his wife, holding a gun with her finger on the trigger, both pointing loaded weapons at peaceful protestors, just walking by their house. Wasn't even their target of protest.

And the FUCKING GREENS, OMG, Howie fucking Hawkings. Gee who would have thought anything different would have happen, mr, yeah Russiagate is real and Venezuela needs to be invaded, Howie God Damn hawking. The "green party" is just a corrupt as any of the other "political parties" in the US. None of them have a ounce of integrity.

The great upheaval we are about to experience is going to make the great depression look like a cake walk. So, get out yer lawn chairs, go up to the roof tops, kick back, grab a drink (your favorite), sit back, relax, smoke a bowl if you have any, and watch the shit show burn.
Drinks

I leave this here, wise words from Obama's mentor and Carter's former national security advisor.

quote-persisting-social-crisis-the-emergence-of-a-charismatic-personality-and-the-exploitation-zbigniew-brzezinski-65-48-93.jpg

Have you got your COVID PassPort Yet?

(And "they" say I'm crazy!)
Crazy

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C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote

Pricknick's picture

@RantingRooster
As my father would say: "You're nucking futs."

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Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.

Pluto's Republic's picture

@RantingRooster

I guess I'm just glad an edgy writer is witnessing the entire panorama with a clear head.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
snoopydawg's picture

@RantingRooster @RantingRooster

I agree.

Hey is anyone seeing signs asking you to use cash credit because there is a coin shortage?

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/meijer-supermarkets-stop-accepting-cas...

I left this in my Russian bounty essay but I’ll post it here too ICYMI.

Like Russia wouldn’t know that we would see that happening in real time and not think anything about it. And if they had seen it happen then why would they sit on it until the Slimes wrote their story? But wait I thought it was $500,000 in cash that tipped them off?

Edited

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Pluto's Republic's picture

@snoopydawg

They have the dumb.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato

@snoopydawg With all Russiagate stories there are the proverbial mile wide holes. For example, Russia hackers left files on a DNC with Russian Cyrillic was it? The Russians were so smart they knew which states were close in 2016 but went ahead and purchased ads in NY state--a state that Hillary won by massive numbers. Oh, an Intercept article claimed that the FBI caught the Russian government hackers because one of them forgot to login into their VPN account and used their ordinary account to access some server.

But as Glenn Greenwald said anything counter factual is proof of Russian actions. An article in Intercept interviewed some security expert who said that the Russians did basic stupid things so they could set up for more deeper hacking later.

Never ends.

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ggersh's picture

@MrWebster

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

@ggersh A decent vodka priced between high end and low end. But in these times I go low end. By the third shot I can't taste nothing.

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ggersh's picture

@MrWebster Guaranteed to get you to a 4th!

NDA:never try this at home

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1 user has voted.

I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

snoopydawg's picture

@MrWebster

sadly this is too true. I remember back when I was naive and believed that once the truth started coming out people would wake up and see how they had been duped and would be pissed off that they were lied to. Well the truth is out there and yet they still believe everything they read and heard about Russia, Russia...... Just take a look at the wreck list and see how many are buying into this new story. I replied to kos yesterday on the Twit and asked if he had rear the WSJ's report that totally debunked the bounty story. He ignored me. Again. If the pentagon and the NSC denying the report doesn't sway people they just don't want to use their brains and have become the laughing stock they have long accused the right of being.

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5 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

ggersh's picture

@snoopydawg

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3 users have voted.

I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

RantingRooster's picture

@MrWebster but I'm stealing this line Crazy

Russians are evil geniuses who are really stoopid.

I was reading the VIPS memo "Intel Vets Challenge ‘Russia Hack’ Evidence" over at consortiumnew.com

Forensic studies of “Russian hacking” into Democratic National Committee computers last year reveal that on July 5, 2016, data was leaked (not hacked) by a person with physical access to DNC computer. After examining metadata from the “Guccifer 2.0” July 5, 2016 intrusion into the DNC server, independent cyber investigators have concluded that an insider copied DNC data onto an external storage device.

Personally, (speculation) I think it was Seth Rich who copied the data and got it to Julian Assange.

Drinks

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C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote

@RantingRooster I read a tweet-in-passing that NYC is renting out some huge halls and/or gyms to help them process eviction notices for the expected avalanche.

Everybody and their pets saw the catastrophe that is going to happen months ago. Nancy was too busy filling up her freezer with ice cream.

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snoopydawg's picture

@MrWebster

are being readied in NYC. This is unconscionable that they would allow this to happen during a pandemic, but we see how the power elite don't give a shit about any of our lives. They were and are freaking out as the number of deaths from COVID rises, but they don't care about the number of people who die because of lack of health care. Democrats are showing their yellow hypocritical spines by going after Trump for his response when they had the chance to save lives during O's tenure.

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6 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

@MrWebster This from The Tim Black Show and I posted in the link at the bottom because quoting Chucky and Nancy isn't enough, you gotta see and hear it to really appreciate what, and how they said it.
This is how important the name of George Floyd really is to these two bad actors (not the two idiots in the picture, but two in Congress).

Maybe for some reason some can't watch the video, too bad because the sound and visuals are priceless on their own, but here are the two quotes.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi saysshe will support the bill "only if you can tell me this Bill is worthy of George Kirby's name". Just beaming at the grand condition on her support.

Meanwhile the Democratic Party leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, in a very sincere voice speaks out "to the family of Floyd Taylor,uh George Taylor" .

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mimi's picture

For the revolution that we never got?

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